Patriots’ win over the Giants is highest-rated game of season in Boston, second-most-watched nationally
Patriots-Giants games during the Bill Belichick/Tom Brady era have consistently played out as edge-of-your-La-Z-Boy thrillers.
Commensurately, Patriots-Giants games during that span have consistently drawn enormous television ratings.
Both statements held true Sunday afternoon.
The Patriots’ 27-26 victory over the Giants – literally a last-second victory, with Stephen Gostkowski’s winning 54-yard field goal slipping inside the left upright with a single tick left on the clock – was the highest-rated and most-watched game of the season in the Boston market and the second-most-watched game nationally among all networks.
In Boston, the game delivered a 46.3 household rating and a share of 69, peaking at 7:45 p.m. with a 52.9 rating and a 71 share. That household rating topped the season’s previous high of 44.6, set during the Week 6 victory over the Colts on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
Nationally, the game earned a 16.3 rating and 30 share in CBS’s 4:25 p.m. window. It drew an average viewership of 28.3 million, making it second only Fox’s Seahawks-Cowboys broadcast on Nov. 1 (29.4 million) in viewership among all national NFL games this season.
The rating measures the percentage of television-equipped households turned in to the game. Share is the percentage of televisions in use at the time that are tuned in.
The 46.3 household rating was the third-highest in Patriots regular season history since Nielsen switched to its current Local People Meter measurement method in 2002.
The top-rated Patriots broadcast was also a matchup with the Giants. The 2007 regular-season finale, in which the Patriots beat the Giants 38-35 to complete a 16-0 regular season, earned a 50.1 rating and a 75 share in Boston. It was simulcast on Chs. 4, 5, 7 and the NFL Network.
Second is a Nov. 2, 2014, matchup with the Broncos in 2014, which earned a 47.2 rating and a 69 share.
Sunday’s game, as usual, was the highest-rated television show in the Boston market for the week.
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