NFC Championship Game Delivers Dominating Primetime Performance on FOX
Sunday night’s NFC Championship Game saw the top-seeded Carolina Panthers overwhelm the visiting Arizona Cardinals by a score of 49-15 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, winning the night among all broadcast networks with a 24.1/37 household rating/share and an average audience of 45.7 million viewers, according to fast national figures released today by Nielsen.
Additional highlights include:
– Despite the lopsided score, the NFC Championship Game posted a +7% household ratings increase over the 22.5/35 for the 2015 AFC Championship Game that aired in the same window last year on CBS.
– The game ranks as FOX’s highest-rated and most-watched event since the 2015 NFC Championship Game and expects to deliver the network it’s highest-rated and most-watched Sunday night since Super Bowl XLVIII in February 2014.
– The audience peaked at 49.9 million viewers from 8:00 to 8:30 PM ET.
– Producing increases across key demographics over the 2015 AFC Championship, last night’s game showed gains of +21% in the M18-34 (16.0 vs. 13.2) category and +15% among M18-49 (19.2 vs. 16.7).
– Charlotte led all markets with an impressive 54.2/71 and Phoenix ranked third with a 43.9/65, both marking the highest postseason ratings ever for the FOX station in each market.
– The Top 10 markets are as follows: Charlotte – 54.2/71; Greensboro – 50.9/63; Phoenix – 43.9/65; Greenville – 43.2/53; Raleigh-Durham – 40.0/55; Norfolk – 37.8/50; New Orleans – 35.3/47; Richmond – 34.9/43; Buffalo – 32.8/44; Las Vegas – 31.2/46.
– On the digital front, the game was live-streamed by more than 175,000 unique visitors on FOX Sports GO, making it the most-watched authenticated NFL game and the third most-watched authenticated event in FOX Sports GO’s history.
