Cowboys-Packers garners best ratings of the year

by Ed Bark of UncleBarky.com

The game drew over 1,000,000 viewers combined between MY27 and NFL Network in the DFW area.

D-FW football fans withstood announcer Bryant Gumbel and made a Goliath of MY27 Thursday night.

The station's simulcast of the NFL Network's Cowboys-Packers game averaged 815,739 total homes from start -- 7:17 p.m. -- to finish -- 10:32 p.m.

But wait, there's more. Nielsen Media Research numbers say that another 273,162 D-FW homes tuned to the NFL Network, which has limited distribution in this viewing area.

Those surprisingly robust numbers for NFL Network puts the grand total at 1,088,898, shattering the previous 2007 regular season record set by the Oct. 14th Cowboys-Patriots game on CBS (884,123 total homes). Wow.

(Note to readers: These are precise numbers calculated from the actual running time of the game, not the estimated running time on ratings printouts.)

Nothing stood a chance opposite Cowboys-Packers, including the local 10 p.m. newscasts. Airing directly opposite the game's closing half-hour, they drew roughly one-third their usual audiences.

Belo8 led with 90,117 total homes (its Nov. sweeps average was 248,432 homes), followed by CBS11 (68,197), Fox4 (51,148) and NBC5 (48,712).

The ABC station also won at 10 p.m. among 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. That's small consolation when your newscast draws 61,835 of these viewers and the Cowboys amass 789,126 of 'em on MY27 alone from 10 to 10:30 p.m.

Belo8 also won at 6 a.m. in total homes on the day after the end of the November "sweeps" ratings period. Fox4 fired back by placing first with 25-to-54-year-olds.

The ABC station again ran the table in both measurements at 5 and 6 p.m.

Check out Uncle Barky's lambasting of Bryant Gumbel's NFL-announcing skills (or lack thereof) at his blog.