CBS needs to go to confession after what its schedulers just did to “God Friended Me.” The drama dropped 42 percent week over week on Sunday, when it not only faced NBC’s primetime football but Fox’s World Series Game 5. The live sports took the rest of TV to church last night.
Due to the nature of live sports, the below fast-national Nielsen numbers for Fox and NBC are subject to significant adjustment. This time around, it was baseball (well, the championship) over football. We have no reason to believe the positioning will change when final figures become available later today.
Fox was first in ratings with a 4.9 rating/18 share in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 17.7 million, according to preliminary numbers. That was all the Red Sox-over-Dodgers’ doing.
NBC was second in ratings with a 3.2/12 and in viewers with 10.4 million. Those numbers are the average of NBC’s pregame show and the New Orleans Saints-Minnesota Vikings game.
CBS was third in ratings with a 0.7/3 and in viewers with 6.9 million. At 7 p.m., “60 Minutes” received a 0.8/3 and 7.8 million viewers. “God Friended Me” at 8 had a 0.7/3 and 7 million viewers. At 9, “NCIS: Los Angeles” got a 0.8/3 and 7.1 million viewers. “Madam Secretary” at 10 closed out primetime with a 0.6/2 and 5.6 million viewers.
ABC was fourth in ratings with a 0.6/2 and in viewers with 3.4 million. “America’s Funniest Home Videos” at 7 had a 0.8/3 and 4.9 million viewers. At 8, “Dancing With the Stars: Juniors” got a 0.7/2 and 4 million viewers. “Shark Tank” at 9 received a 0.6/2 and 3.2 million viewers. “The Alec Baldwin Show” at 10 settled for a 0.3/1 and 1.7 million viewers.
Telemundo was fifth in ratings with a 0.5/2 and in viewers with 1.4 million.
Univision was sixth in ratings with a 0.4/1 and in viewers with 1.2 million.
The CW was seventh in ratings with a 0.3/1 and in viewers with 1.1 million. At 8, “Supergirl” got a 0.4/1 and 1.3 million viewers. “Charmed” at 9 had a 0.3/1 and 1.1 million viewers.