NFL Helps Fox Win Sunday Night Ratings Battle
by EG
Sagging NFL ratings? A boycott by fans? Those weren't the stories Sunday night, when the Sunday Night Football game on Fox not only pulled huge ratings, it also propped up the ratings of the shows that came after it. The exciting last-play playoff victory by the Minnesota Vikings was a big ratings win, and the game's ratings boost spilled over into the rest of Fox's Sunday-night programming.
Sunday's surprise eleventh-hour win for the Minnesota Vikings was a huge win for Fox as well. The end of the game catapulted the network's primetime block.
The last half-hour of the game, which saw the New Orleans Saints briefly take the lead before the Vikings won in the final seconds, delivered 33.4 million viewers to Fox and a stunning 10.2 rating among adults 18-49.
The Vikings will now face the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game. Full returns for the game won't arrive until later, but they naturally propelled the programs that followed. The Simpsons reaped the best rewards with a 3.5 rating among adults 18-49, followed by Bob's Burgers (2.2 adults), the 300th episode of Family Guy (1.7 adults) and The Last Man On Earth (1.3 adults).
The fight for a distant No. 2 went to ABC. America's Funniest Home Videos (1.2 adults) led into two episodes of Shark Tank, which returned 1.3 and 1.2 ratings among adults 18-49.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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