First it was “SG:U” bleeding away viewers from “Dollhouse” on Friday, now it’s the NFL taking away viewers from three of the four big networks Monday evening.
The Monday night contest between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings scored the largest ratings for a cable broadcast Monday evening with over 20 million viewers tuning into the game on ESPN.
Those viewers were lured away from network fare on CBS, NBC and Fox. Only ABC saw slight gains in viewership for its “Dancing with the Stars” and (in good news for Nathan Fillion fans), “Castle.”
The viewership drop hurt “Heroes” most, where it was off 8% as compared ot last week. For those of you keeping track at home, that means this episode was the lowest rated episode in the four-year history of the show. The low ratings for “Heroes” also hurt NBC’s ‘Trauma.”
Meanwhile, CBS’s Monday comedy line-up was off by five to 15 percent over its two hour run. The news is still good for “The Big Bang Theory.” The show continues to thrive in its new time slot, building on the viewers from “Two and a Half Men.”
May I be the first to offer a great big “Well Duh!”?
Good. Because “DUH!” Sports always takes away ratings from real programming. This is not new in any way, shape, or form. I’m kind of baffled that anyone would be surprised by this revelation. In other news, water is wet.