Sunday ratings roundup: Viewers friend “God Friended Me”
Cubs, Bears score strong in Chicago
Note: All numbers are 18-49 unless otherwise noted. These are finals.
In a very contentious time in America, viewers needed a friend. And they found one Sunday night.
CBS received strong sampling with new drama God Friended Me Sunday night, with a 1.3 rating/5 share and 10.2 million viewers. The series is about an atheist who receives a friend request from God on Facebook. I guess you can say this is the first television show based on a Facebook action.
Viewers generally “liked” the show, receiving positive reviews if not from critics – following in tradition of similar shows such as Highway To Heaven and Touched By An Angel. Get used to it America – God Friended Me is going to stick around for awhile, even if it sounds dopey.
CBS followed Friend with the season premiere of NCIS: Los Angeles with a 1.1/4 and 8.8 million viewers. Closing out the night was the repeat of the Magnum reboot with a 0.7/3 and nearly five million viewers. The night began for CBS with a 2.2/9 and 13. 5 million viewers for 60 Minutes, starting at 6:43 p.m. Central Time benefiting from an NFL overrun (4.0/17, 15 million viewers.)
Over to Fox, where some parts of the country where in an NFL overrun in a first hour of primetime (6-7 p.m. CT), the 30th season (!) of The Simpsons earned a 1.4/5, but only 3.2 million viewers. For a show that endured quite a bit of controversy this year (Apu), consider the numbers a bit of a victory.
Bob’s Burgers‘ ninth season premiered with a decent 1.1/4, followed by Family Guy (1.2/5) and the time period premiere of Rel (0.8/4.)
At NBC, Sunday Night Football was the highest-rated and most-watched show of the night (6.1/24, 16.5 million viewers) with a game between the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers, with ratings up from last week. The numbers here only go up to 10 p.m. CT, so more adjustments are expected when the final final numbers come out Tuesday.
Moving to ABC, America’s Funniest home Videos started the evening with a 0.8/4, followed by the broadcast television premiere of Frozen with a 0.6/3 in a movie everyone has seen by now either on cable TV, streaming, or DVD/Blu-Ray. A repeat of Shark Tank closed out the night (0.5). Of note is TLC (90 Days Fiance; 0.8), AMC (Fear The Walking Dead; 0.7) and the Food Network (Halloween Wars; 0.7) all out-rated ABC in the demo.
Local favorite Shameless drew a 0.4 demo rating Sunday night for Showtime and drew nearly 1.1 million viewers.
Turning to local ratings, the Chicago Bears dominated the competition – on-field and off with a 24.6 household rating as they thrashed the Tampa Bay Buccanners Sunday at Soldier Field, and scoring a 4 percent ratings increase from last week when they played a late game against the Arizona Cardinals. But also drawing a sizable audience was the Cubs’ regular season finale against the St. Louis Cardinals, drawing an 8.4 household rating for NBC Sports Chicago. Given this was opposite NFL competition on other channels and overlapping the Bears game, this number was very impressive. The win against St. Louis led to a tiebreaker contest Monday afternoon at Wrigley against the Milwaukee Brewers (more in the next ratings report.)
The number was the highest for NBC Sports Chicago for a Cubs game in two years.