Bears rule Monday night – in the ratings and on the field

The Bears ruled Monday night.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

The Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys were featured on ESPN’s Monday Night Football and drew the largest audience of the season with 16.6 million viewers, a 12.3 household rating, and a whopping 6.8 rating among adults 18-49, topping all competition – broadcast or cable. The Bears – led by quarterback Jay Cutler and its stellar defense, beat the Cowboys 34-18 for their second straight win at the new Cowboys Stadium. Cowboys’ QB Tony Romo had a horrible night, throwing five interceptions (maybe Romo is the new “Gilligan”. He’d throw his sailor’s hat, but that would be intercepted too.)

In Chicago, the game earned a 32.5 rating – split between a 17.3 for ESPN and a 15.2 for Tribune’s WGN-TV, which carried the game locally. In Dallas, the game earned a 26.1 rating, split between a 13.8 rating for ESPN and a 12.3 for KTXA, a CBS-owned independent station. In both markets, MNF easily cruised to ratings victory the most watched show of the evening.

As for the broadcast networks Monday night (all ratings 18-49 numbers, unless noted:)

– NBC’s The Voice continues to impress, with a 4.6/12 and 12.55 million viewers, up 5 percent from last week. People, this show is hot. But this show is not – ABC’s Dancing With The Stars continued its downward spiral with a 2.1/5, and 12.38 million viewers, down 16 percent from last week. The Voice is now the clear winner in this head-to-head matchup.

– NBC also had good news with Revolution, whose 3.2/8 in the final hour of primetime easily cleared CBS’ Hawaii Five-O (2.0/5) and ABC’s Castle (1.9/5). Revolution, along with sitcoms Go On and New Normal, were the first shows to receive full-season orders of the season. Welcome back, NBC.

– These shows will be lucky to last through next week: T Dog Media TV Hall Of Shame-bound Mob Doctor earned just a 1.0/2 for Fox, down from the 2.1/6 Bones provided, while CBS’ Partners dropped to a 2.1/5, down 36 percent from its How I Met Your Mother lead-in (3.3/5). Social media criticism of the show and Romo’s crappy performance lead yours truly to tweet this:

Who had the roughest night? Cowboys fans who sat through Tony Romo's performance or anyone who had to sit through "Partners"?

— T Dog Media (@tdogmedia) October 2, 2012

– CBS’ 2 Broke Girls earned a 3.5/8, but those numbers are nowhere near what Two And A Half Men earned this time last year – or any other year the sitcom has been in the time period. Mike & Molly followed with a 2.9/7.

– CW’s iHeart Music Radio Festival earned a 0.6/1 and drew 1.7 million viewers, the network’s best showing in nearly five months. Because the special was pre-empted in Chicago due to the Bears game, it will air Sunday night at 7 p.m. on WGN.

– Finally, if you watched the game over WGN locally, did it strike you as odd to see promos for WCIU programming? One promo that ran over WGN was for WCIU’s new weeknight comedy block featuring Rules Of Engagement and for the 9 p.m. airing of Family Guy – which also happens to air at 11:30 p.m. on WGN. One reason for this may be WCIU had the local broadcast rights for all three Bears’ MNF games, including the Dallas matchup. With a WGN-produced White Sox game airing at the same time on WCIU, WGN agreed to air the Bears game and the WCIU promos. Well, its close to a correct explanation I can provide.