It was a huge Sunday night for the NFL, and for CBS. The AFC Championship Game conquered the TV ratings delivering a 9.3 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 33.01 million viewers in early Nielsen Live+Same Day data as the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills 38-24 to punch their return ticket to the Super Bowl.
The defending champs will now face off against Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who upset the Green Bay Packers earlier Sunday on Fox in the NFC Championship Game, in Super Bowl LV on February 7 in Miami live on CBS.
Fox said its Buccaneers-Packers game drew a 26.5/54 overnight rating for its afternoon coverage, which was up 5% from both last year’s NFC title game in primetime and the AFC game which aired in the comparable window.
Following the Chiefs-Bills showdown, FBI (2.1, 8.62M) benefited from the strong lead-in. Both the game and FBI numbers will likely be adjusted in the finals later today.
Elsewhere Sunday, on ABC, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (0.3, 2.89M) and Card Sharks (0.2, 1.98M) ticked down a tenth in the demo while The Rookie (0.4, 3.24M) held steady. A new episode of the CW’s Batwoman (0.2, 642,000) climbed a tenth from last week’s Season 2 premiere, leading in to the Season 3 premiere of Charmed (0.1, 465K).
Elsewhere, NBC aired reruns with the exception of the season premiere of Dateline (0.3, 1.69M). Fox aired repeats of its Sunday animation block.
