{"id":695145,"date":"2026-01-22T01:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/695145\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T01:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:31:12","slug":"nfl-playoffs-score-top-saturday-tv-audience-in-32-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/695145\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Playoffs Score Top Saturday TV Audience in 32 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWhile there\u2019s an argument to be made that no real winner emerged from Saturday afternoon\u2019s divisional round shootout between the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/buffalo-bills\/\" id=\"auto-tag_buffalo-bills_1\" data-tag=\"buffalo-bills\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Bills<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/denver-broncos\/\" id=\"auto-tag_denver-broncos_1\" data-tag=\"denver-broncos\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Denver Broncos<\/a>, CBS certainly walked away from the broadcast with an unequivocal victory.<\/p>\n<p>In an overtime thriller that saw Bills quarterback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/josh-allen\/\" id=\"auto-tag_josh-allen_1\" data-tag=\"josh-allen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Josh Allen<\/a> reduced to tears and Broncos fans in much the same state upon the revelation of Bo Nix\u2019s season-ending ankle injury, CBS served up the biggest Saturday TV audience since the eighth night of the 1994 Winter Olympics. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/nielsen\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nielsen_1\" data-tag=\"nielsen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nielsen<\/a>, the network\u2019s coverage of Denver\u2019s 33-30 home win averaged 39.6 million viewers, an increase of 17% versus last year\u2019s analogous Texans-Chiefs game on ESPN\/ABC.<\/p>\n<p>The previous record for the early Saturday divisional round window was set by Fox in 2012, as the 49ers\u2019 dramatic come-from-behind win over the Saints averaged 35.6 million viewers. As with all comparisons between today\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/tv-ratings\/\" id=\"auto-tag_tv-ratings_1\" data-tag=\"tv-ratings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TV ratings<\/a> and those of yesteryear, it\u2019s worth noting that neither Fox\u2019s NFC clash nor CBS\u2019 Olympics broadcast of 32 years ago were boosted by <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/business\/media\/2025\/nfl-ratings-new-nielsen-tv-currency-1234871472\/\">out-of-home deliveries<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The CBS audience peaked with 51.3 million viewers as Wil Lutz\u2019s 23-yard field goal split the uprights in overtime. The chip shot propelled Denver into the AFC Championship game for the first time since 2016, when Peyton Manning led the Broncos to a 20-18 victory over Tom Brady and the Patriots. The rematch between these two franchises is set to kick off on CBS this Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n<p>While CBS reaped the benefits of a nailbiter up in the Rockies, Fox wasn\u2019t nearly as fortunate in the late Saturday window. Seattle\u2019s 41-6 dismemberment of San Francisco averaged 31.9 million viewers, down 8% versus last year\u2019s considerably more competitive Commanders-Lions game (34.6 million), and off 15% compared to Fox\u2019s Packers-49ers broadcast in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Fox will look to bounce back from that tension-free assignment with the Rams-Seahawks NFC title tilt in the late Sunday window. The last time the two rivals met in the postseason was in the 2005 wild card round, when the Rams still called St. Louis home; per Nielsen, ABC\u2019s broadcast averaged 21.9 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p>Final ratings for the Sunday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/nfl\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nfl_1\" data-tag=\"nfl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NFL<\/a> games will be released on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While there\u2019s an argument to be made that no real winner emerged from Saturday afternoon\u2019s divisional round shootout&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[53,258,7,872,6,84,61194,17681],"class_list":["post-695145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-playoffs","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-denver-broncos","tag-football","tag-josh-allen","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-nielsen","tag-tv-ratings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115936171409760456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}