The NFL’s Week 15 has come and gone, and the league’s ratings are once again less than thrilling with viewership down for nearly every broadcast window on its slate.
According to Sports Media Watch, every game but two were down between 3 percent and 17 percent in the ratings.
On CBS, the Kansas City-New Orleans game was off three percent in the ratings compared to the comparable Week 15 game in 2019. The network’s second game between San Francisco and Dallas was off double that in the ratings, the site reported.
Meanwhile, NBC’s was the worst of the week with its Cleveland Browns vs the New York Giants suffering a massive 17 percent decline in the ratings.
Fox’s other game also did not fare well seeing a 14 percent decline.
On the upside, Fox’s Thursday Night Football game between the Chargers and the Raiders was up one percent in the ratings, while ESPN’s Pittsburgh vs Cincinnati game on Monday Night Football was up a bit more than that (exact number not determined at press time).
The Week 15 decline comes on the heels of an 11 percent overall decline for Week 14 as seen last week.
The steady decline of the NFL’s ratings has forced the league to begin looking for ways to make it up to its shaken advertisers who are looking to recover money lost due to unexpectedly small television audiences through make-goods, repeat ad showings and other provisions.
Whatever the league does for its annoyed advertisers this year, the falling ratings could also foretell doom as the league looks to renegotiate its bargaining position with its broadcast partners as TV broadcast rights deals come to an end in the next few years.
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