TV Ratings: ‘Sunday Night Football’ Fumbles, ‘Funniest Home Videos’ Rises

Last night on NBC, the Carolina Panthers’ 27-16 win over the Philadelphia Eagles definitely had, to quote a diplomatic friend, some lulls. While Carolina now has a 6-0 record for the first time in franchise history, Sunday Night Football (6.9/19) saw a fumble in the adults 18-49 demo on a night of a lot of NFL on the Big 4.

On a Sunday that didn’t see SNF facing baseball playoffs and did see it facing a potentially game-changing episode of The Walking Dead, that’s a dip of 8% from the fast nationals compared with last the New England Patriots 34-27 win over the dumb fake-punting Indianapolis Colts last week. That October 18 game from 8:30-11:33 PM ET game rose to a strong 8.2/23 rating among 18-49s with 22.82 million total viewers. Last night’s game will of course see an adjustment later too, but very unlikely that with a 5.6/16 rating and a total audience of 15.62 million that NBC’s demo and viewership wins will change.

In metered market results, last night’s SNF scored a 13.6/22 rating, the best a regula- season Panthers game has done since December 8, 1997. Still, that’s down 7% from last week’s Patriots-Colts game, which was up double-digits from the season low of October 11. The second-lowest MM result of the season so far for SNF, last night’s game was also down 8% in MM ratings from the comparable week last year when Denver Broncos QB Peyton Manning threw his 509th touchdown to break the NFL record previously held by Brett Favre.

As usual, CBS’ Sunday NFL game went late and cut into the net’s primetime schedule with a 35-minute delay in Eastern and Central time zones. Which means CBS’ numbers are tentative until final data come in later. As it stands, 60 Minutes (1.3/4), which had the first sit-down interview with Vice President Joe Biden since he said late last week that he wouldn’t running for president in 2016, was down 46% from its October 18 airing. Madam Secretary (1.3/4) bopped up 8%, The Good Wife (1.0/3) dipped 9%, and CSI: Cyber (0.8/2) rose 14% from a harsh previous week.

With mega-market teams the New York Giants beating the Dallas Cowboys 27-20, Fox also had NFL overruns that led to a surge in primetime results. Going Halloween with “Treehouse of Horror XXVI,” The Simpsons (2.7/8) was up 59% in the 18-49 demo. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2.0/5) rose 67%, Family Guy (1.8/5) was up 29%, and The Last Man On Earth jumped 40% from their October 18 episodes.

On ABC, Sunday started strong with America’s Funniest Home Videos (1.1/3) shooting up 38% after last week’s big fall to a season high. The rest of the net’s night had Once Upon A Time (1.6/5) and the now-trimmed Blood & Oil (0.9/2) even with the lows of their October 18 shows, while Quantico (1.5/4) slipped 6% to tie a low in fast nationals.