Fox’s Sunday broadcast of the NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers posted strong ratings for the network but they were down year-to-year. Despite the decline, the game provided a big boost for the series premiere of 9-1-1: Lone Star.
The game, which featured the 49ers taking a victory over the Packers (37-20) to secure their spot in the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs, scored a 10.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and drew 34.13 million total viewers. While that’s no number to scoff at, the ratings did take a hit from last year when the New England Patriots won in an overtime victory over the Chiefs in the AFC finale on CBS. That game drew a 27.2 rating in the early numbers and was watched by 53.9 million viewers. That had been a 27% spike from 2018 and was the most-watched conference title game in a half-decade.
The series premiere of 9-1-1: Lone Star benefitted from the NFL boost with a 3.2 demo rating and 11.5 million viewers. The procedural spinoff from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk and showrunner Tim Minear was the network’s most-watched debut in 11 years (excluding post-Super Bowl programming), and 23% better than the post-NFC Championship Game debut of The Resident on Fox in 2018.
As for the AFC Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans on CBS, that was watched by 41.11 million viewers and scored a 23.1 demo rating. The win earned the Chiefs a spot in this year’s Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers. The big game will be played at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on February 2 and will air on Fox.
