{"id":353620,"date":"2025-12-17T09:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/353620\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T09:45:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:45:12","slug":"nfl-scores-nearly-44-million-viewers-for-sundays-double-doubleheader-on-cbs-fox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/353620\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL scores nearly 44-million viewers for Sunday&#8217;s &#8216;double-doubleheader&#8217; on CBS, Fox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Week 15 featured a broadcast anomaly that helped the NFL secure a massive combined audience on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time this season, Sunday afternoon\u2019s NFL slate featured a \u201cdouble-doubleheader\u201d in which both CBS and Fox air competing national window games in the 4:25 p.m. ET window. This happens twice a year, but only recently has the NFL opted to place one of these double-doubleheaders in the middle of the season. Initially, CBS and Fox would each air competing national window games in Weeks 1 and 18. But the past two years, the NFL has opted to remove the double-doubleheader from Week 1, instead giving CBS and Fox an opportunity to secure massive audiences for themselves rather than competing against one another.<\/p>\n<p>That has pushed one of these double-doubleheaders to the middle of the season. And Sunday afternoon was the perfect storm, with several high-interest early-afternoon games leading into a late-afternoon slate featuring the Green Bay Packers-Denver Broncos game on CBS, and the Detroit Lions-Los Angeles Rams game on Fox.<\/p>\n<p>According to press releases issued by both networks on Tuesday, Sunday\u2019s late-afternoon window averaged a combined 43.9 million viewers between CBS and Fox. Last year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nfl\/massive-combined-audience-sunday-double-doubleheader.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mid-season double-doubleheader<\/a>, the first of its kind, averaged 39.6 million viewers, meaning Sunday saw an 11% year-over-year increase for the league. The Broncos\u2019 win over the Packers averaged 24.5 million viewers on CBS, while the Rams\u2019 win over the Lions secured 19.4 million viewers on Fox.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cNFL ON CBS\u201d Scores its Most-Watched Week 15 Doubleheader Ever<br \/>\ud83c\udfc8GB-DEN at 4:25 PM: Most-watched program of the week on any network with 24.497 M viewers<br \/>\ud83c\udfc8NE-BUF and LAC-KC at 1 PM: Best Week 15 regional window on any network in 37 years with 18.926 M viewers<\/p>\n<p>Record-Setting\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ybLKnhuN2U\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/ybLKnhuN2U<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBSSportsGang\/status\/2001046034261201014?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 16, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">With <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NFLPlayoffs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#NFLPlayoffs<\/a> on the horizon, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NFLonFOX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@NFLONFOX<\/a> delivers 19.4 million for its Week 15 AMERICA\u2019S GAME OF THE WEEK window, highlighted by the Rams victory over the Lions \ud83d\udcc8 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/orm0JMQx3o\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/orm0JMQx3o<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FOXSportsPR\/status\/2001051411853795512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 16, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>CBS benefited from an exceptionally strong 1 p.m. window, averaging 18.9 million viewers for regional action featuring two dandies: Bills-Patriots and Chargers-Chiefs. Both games went down to the wire, and both had massive playoff implications. Fox, on the other hand, averaged just 9.5 million viewers for a much more underwhelming lineup that featured Raiders-Eagles or Browns-Bears in most markets. Still, the network was able to surge by 10 million viewers for its national window, despite direct competition from CBS.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday shows the power of the double-doubleheader, and why the NFL likes them so much. Rather than a single network earning 20-some million viewers, the NFL gets to benefit from two networks putting up gaudy numbers. 43.9 million viewers is in the same ballpark as the NFL\u2019s Thanksgiving day audiences.<\/p>\n<p>CBS and Fox hate the double-doubleheader, for obvious reasons. They\u2019d rather secure a bigger audience for themselves and not have to compete with another game.<\/p>\n<p>A result like Sunday\u2019s might make the NFL rethink the number of double-doubleheaders it adds to the schedule, however. If there\u2019s more juice to be squeezed from the viewership lime, the NFL will usually find a way to squeeze it.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Week 15 featured a broadcast anomaly that helped the NFL secure a massive combined audience on Sunday afternoon.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,30463,60867,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-353620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-on-cbs","12":"tag-nfl-on-fox","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}