Thursday Night Football suffered an 11 percent ratings decline, as the San Francisco 49ers routed the Oakland Raiders 34-3.
The 49er-Raiders game, that featured a 49ers cheerleader taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem, earned an 8.2/14 in metered markets only a tick behind the 8.3 earned by CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. It was an 11 percent fall over the NFL’s Week Eight Thursday game, Deadline Hollywood reported.
The November 1 game was not as bad as the ratings earned by TNF’s October 18 game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Denver Broncos which crashed to a season low earning a low 6.6/11 in metered markets.
The Cardinals-Broncos game was not just down 39 percent from the week previous, but it was down 21 percent over Week Six from last season, as well.
While NFL football is usually the most watched show of any particular day — even with cratering ratings — TNF lost to The Big Bang Theory which earned the most-watched status on Thursday. And for the 8:30 half hour, CBS’ Young Sheldon also topped the game with a 1.7 and nearly 11 million viewers.
In fact, nearly every other show on the networks showed improvement over previous episodes while the NFL crashed.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.