Bears blow out competition – on the field and off

Bears, Truibsky cream Redskins, Dancing, and that Bob show 

The 2019-20 television season is officially underway, but Chicagoans weren’t ready for the new shows….they were ready for Mitch Trubisky.

The Chicago Bears thrashed the Washington Redskins on Monday night Football 31-15, with the Bears offense – struggling as of late – put up 28 points in the first half and never looked back. Redskins QB Case Keenum on the other hand, committed five turnovers.

Not only the Bears stomped over the Redskins, they also stomped over its prime-time competition on the first night of the new TV season.

According to Nielsen via the Chicago Tribune, the game between drew a 31.2 household rating on ESPN and WGN-TV (some incorrectly thought ABC’s WLS-TV aired the game given the network and ESPN are corporate cousins) with the Nexstar-owned station earning an 18 rating while ESPN contributing a 13.2. The numbers easily made WGN and ESPN the most-watched outlets in prime-time Monday night, far ahead of the highest rated non-sports show, Dancing With The Stars (5.6).

Compared to last year’s Seahawks-Bears game airing on WLS/ESPN last year at this time (Dancing hadn’t begun yet as the game took place on September 17, 2018), Monday’s game was up 5 percent.

In Washington D.C. where the game did air on local ABC affiliate WJLA, the Sinclair-owned station drew a 16.0 rating (Dancing was shifted to 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.)

Nationally, the game drew a 7.3 household overnight metered-market rating, down 13 percent from comparable week three matchup last year.  Final numbers have yet to be released.

As for the rest of the evening in prime-time nationally, the season premieres of NBC’ The Voice and Fox’s 9-1-1 dominated in the adults 18-49 ratings with the former nabbing an 1.7 and the latter 1.6. Both easily cleared Dancing’s 0.8 and CBS’ The Neighbrhood’s  and the series premiere of Bob (whatever) Abishola’s, each with a 0.9.

In the next hour, Fox’s Prodigal Son (1.0) easily beat CBS’ All Rise with former Luke Cage star Simone Missick, with an 0.7. Even worse, it’s down 40 percent from last year’s premiere of Magnum P.I.

The final hour saw ABC’s The Good Doctor (1.0) beat the premiere of NBC’s Bluff City Law (0.8) and CBS’ Bull (0.7).