The National Football League Wild Card game on NBC on Saturday, Jan. 6, in which the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 21-20, was the most-watched and highest-rated prime time NFL Wild Card game ever, producing a household rating of 16.4/27 and drawing 26.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
The rating for the Seattle-Giants game was 18 percent higher than the comparable prime time Wild Card game on ABC last season. This is the first year since the late ‘90s that NBC aired an NFL post-season game.
Meanwhile, the Sunday afternoon NFL Wild Card game on Fox, in which the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New York Giants, recorded an 18.2.31 rating and share, 21 percent higher than last year’s comparable Wild Card game on Fox. The game was the highest-rated program on any network since the American Idol finale on Fox last May.
The earlier Wild Card game on NBC on Jan. 6, in which the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, scored a 12.6 household rating. The two games averaged a 14.6, up four percent from the two Wild Card games that aired on ABC last season.
