Courtesy New York Times

(October 6, 2009) Finding a series on NBC’s prime-time schedule as successful as “Sunday Night Football” would be like discovering a rare avian species. NBC’s games have swept to victories in every relevant measure this season, averaging 20.8 million viewers, with a jolt from the 24.8 million who watched the Giants beat Dallas on Sept. 20.

NBC’s mostly dismal prime-time performance has kept it in last place for several seasons despite the potent presence of football on Sunday nights. Asked to quantify football’s meaning to the network, Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, said, “Its dominance has been mind-numbing.”

Jeff Gaspin, the chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, said: “It gets a lot of people who might not come to broadcast television without it. If you have the right show to promote within it, as we did with ‘Heroes,’ it can really help you.” When asked what life in prime time at NBC would like without professional football, he said, “I’d have less of an opportunity to promote my schedule and four more hours to fill.”

The proof of the power of “Sunday Night” is in its numbers. In 2005, its last year on ESPN, the franchise averaged 8.7 million viewers. In each successive year on NBC, it has totaled 17.5 million, 16 million and 16.6 million viewers.

Against “Sunday Night Football,” ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” lost 1.7 million viewers from 2006 to 2008. NBC’s football has exceeded the viewership for the last three years’ Emmy Awards shows, nearly doubling the last two.

Last week, when Indianapolis played Arizona, “Sunday Night Football” finished No. 1 in the critical adult 18-to-49 ranking. The portion of the broadcast just before kickoff, from 8:15 to 8:30 p.m., finished fifth.

And the third portion of the “Football Night in America” pregame show tied for 22nd.

The best performance in the demographic by an NBC series without football as its mission statement was “The Office,” which came in at 21st, followed by “The Biggest Loser” at 34th and “Heroes” at 40th.

Even the second segment of “Football Night,” in 42nd place, edged the prestigious “Law & Order: SVU.”

Last season, when “Sunday Night Football” was No. 3 among adults 18 to 49, the next-best programs on NBC’s schedule were “The Office” at No. 14, “The Biggest Loser” at No. 18 and “ER” at No. 29.

“Without football, NBC doesn’t have the strongest schedule in the world,” Shari Anne Brill, the senior vice president and programming director for the media agency Carat USA, said with notable understatement. “The addition of Jay Leno and the subtraction of five hours of scripted programming in the 10 p.m. hour isn’t helping.”

Brill called it “huge” for NBC to use football to promote other prime-time programs. But one can only wonder how much worse off NBC would be without “Sunday Night Football” promoting its schedule.

Ebersol said that in returning to the N.F.L. fold after parting in the late 1990s, NBC wanted only Sunday prime time, lest it disturb its late-night lineup on Monday nights. At the time he was shopping for football, in late 2004 and early 2005, NBC was slouching toward the prime-time cellar. And the Walt Disney Company, through ESPN and ABC Sports, owned football on Sunday and Monday nights.

Ebersol said that he and Jeff Zucker, now the president of NBC Universal, made this pitch to bring “S.N.F.” to General Electric. “It was that having this big piece of beachfront property would be an absolute guarantee, as much of guarantee as you could find, that we would have a top-five television show during the season,” he said.

NBC acquired “Sunday Night Football” for $600 million a year when Disney chose to pay $1.1 billion annually for ESPN to assume “Monday Night” and bid too little to keep a football franchise at ABC Sports.

Ebersol said: “The N.F.L. is more of a guarantee of success than if you got Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie to do an hour drama series for the network. You can’t guarantee that it will be a ratings success.”

ESPN can offer similar praise for “Monday Night.” It has more pro football viewers than ever, an average of 14 million this season (up from 13.3 million for all of 2008), and it was hoping to break its own record for the most viewed N.F.L. game on cable with Brett Favre, in Vikings purple, playing Green Bay in Minneapolis.

Before the game, John Wildhack, an executive vice president of ESPN, said: “We can clearly do more around a Monday night game than we could on Sundays, and when you get a game like tonight’s, it transcends the sports page. It’s special.” Asked what ESPN would be like without the N.F.L., he said, “We’d still be around.”

blog comments powered by Disqus

Accelerate Your Sports Broadcasting Career

Meet Employers

Secrets Revealed

Radio Demos, Resumes

TV Demos, Resumes

Sports Broadcasting Books

Sportscastings Jobs

Show Prep Links