In the NFL, it turns out that a low-scoring game in the snow can beat a high-scoring matchup in a more-advantageous timeslot. CBS proved that on Sunday when it pulled out a win in average viewers for its 10-7 win for the New England Patriots over the Broncos in Denver in the 3 p.m. timeslot over Fox’s 31-27 victory by the Seattle Seahawks over the Los Angeles Rams at 6:30.
According to Nielsen, CBS finishing with a P2+ rating of 15.1, averaging more than 48.6 million viewers for their conference championship broadcast, compared to Fox’s 14.3 rating and an average viewership of 46.1 million viewers. According to CBS, the Patriots-Broncos number is 10 percent better than the early conference championship game last year (Eagles-Commanders), and reached a peak viewership of 57.75 million viewers. That gives CBS the two highest-watched games of this NFL season so far (Chiefs-Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day averaged 57.2 million viewers), though NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LX is expected to surpass them.
“NFL ON CBS” Caps Off Record-Setting Season as AFC Championship Game is this Year’s Most-Watched Playoff Game on Any Network
🏈Patriots-Broncos Averaged 48.618 M viewers and Peaked with 57.759 M
🏈CBS Sports delivered Top 2 Most-Watched Games
🏈NFL ON CBS had its Most-Watched… pic.twitter.com/5XiHF0YT23— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) January 28, 2026
Fox says their broadcast of Rams-Seahawks exceeded last year’s Eagles-Commanders broadcast by 4 percent, reaching a peak viewership of 49.69 million in the 9:30-9:45 pm quarter hour.
The @Seahawks are soaring to the Super Bowl 🏆
An NFC West rivalry rematch delivered 46,087,000 viewers for the #NFCChampionship 👀 pic.twitter.com/uLtRyKsCwY
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) January 28, 2026
Looking deeper into Nielsen’s rating data, CBS’s win is much slimmer than those numbers indicate. When it comes to two of the most important audience demographic breakdowns, Fox finishes much closer, but still short of CBS. For the breakdown of persons 25-54 years old, CBS finished with a rating of 14.0 and audience of 17.646 million. Fox’s rating number (13.9) and audience (17.426 million) are very close, and moving to persons 18-49, the ratings and audience are almost identical. CBS and Fox finished in that demographic with the same rating (11.3) and CBS having an audience lead of just 70,000 (15.429 million to 15.352 million).
Both NFL games Sunday finished with nearly twice the audience of the third most-watched sporting event of the weekend, ESPN’s broadcast of the College Football Playoff national title game between Indiana and Miami (9.3 P2+ rating and 29.97 million viewers).
