Ratings: 60 Minutes loses half of CBS NFL audience

A still frame from a "60 Minutes" broadcast on Canadian television network Global. — A still frame from a “60 Minutes” broadcast on Canadian television network Global. (Still frame via screen capture)

CBS News is still struggling to figure out how to keep football fans sticking around to watch its flagship news magazine program “60 Minutes” on a weekly basis.

The show, which would have delayed its series premiere to mid-October had it not been for new new Executive Producer Nick Bilton urging an earlier debut, lost more than 60 percent of the network’s football audience during Nielsen’s most-recent measurement week, according to ratings data reviewed by The Desk.

More than 10 million people watched the third episode of 60 Minutes’ 59th season, a respectable number that helped CBS achieve the highest ratings for news programming among the five major broadcast networks during Nielsen’s measurement week that ended October 4.

But the number pales in comparison to the 28.4 million people who watched one of three National Football League (NFL) games aired across the country by CBS stations and affiliates. Most of the country received a highly-anticipated match-up between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs, though pockets of the country were treated to games featuring the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos or the Los Angeles Chargers and Seattle Seahawks.

Nielsen reports national and regional football games aired by CBS and Fox as a single program, since fans are watching those games at the same time. Specific per-game ratings data isn’t shared by the measurement service, so it is hard to know which game was the best lead-in for 60 Minutes.

Still, CBS achieved some milestones during the measurement week: In addition to having the highest-rated news program out of all broadcast networks, it also scored the highest sports ratings with that national window of games and the strongest viewership to a scripted series with its Season 2 premiere of “Yellowstone” spin-off “Marshals.” That episode, called “All Hat No Cattle,” brought in 8.2 million viewers and had a 2.55 share, according to Nielsen data.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” was the only other non-sports telecast to break into Nielsen’s top 10 list for broadcast TV programs, attracting 8.3 million viewers with a 2.53 share. The rest of the list involved football games or football-related coverage.

A similar situation played out on cable, where football and baseball games dominated the week. ESPN’s simulcast of Monday Night Football attracted the strongest overall viewership with 9.2 million viewers watching the main broadcast on the network. ABC’s telecast was the stronger of the two programs, bringing in 13.4 million viewers with its match-up involving the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The NFL’s London-based game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Washington Commanders was the second most-watched program of the week, pulling in 5 million football fans and a 1.55 share. This season is the first in which NFL Network’s broadcasts are produced by ESPN after the Disney-owned sports company acquired NFL Media in February.

Fox News, which usually dominates the cable ranker with ESPN, only had one program listed in the top 10 this week, with Monday’s episode of the panel discussion program “The Five” pulling in 2.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen data. None of the network’s prime-time shows broke out in the top 10, but Fox overall still did okay for itself, with Fox Sports 1’s broadcast of Major League Baseball’s Game 2 of the National League Divisional Series game between the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers grabbing 3.3 million viewers.

The full ratings charts for the week are below: