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NBC’s ‘Sunday Night Football’ Claims Credit for Network Turnaround

NBC’s Sunday Night Football exceeded network goals and was, in fact, the cornerstone of the prime time turnaround at NBC. That is, according to Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics.

Ebersol has said that the first season of SNF on NBC brought in more male viewers, served to “shore up” the entire Sunday night lineup, and acted as a promotional platform for freshman hit Heroes, writes Mediaweek.

Ebersol points out that the “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” promo campaign for the drama was conceptualized specifically for the Sunday Night Football audience. He says the success of the show rests more than anything else upon the promotion it received during the first three Sunday Night Football games before Heroes premiered.
SNF was the third best program among all prime time in adults 18-49, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. That’s a 262 percent increase over NBC’s last year average in the same time period.

The NFL’s new flex scheduling, which allowed the network to choose the games it would air on late season Sunday nights, gave the network record ratings increases in weeks 14-16. The article points out that the increases were higher than the comparable weeks for Monday Night Football on ABC last season.

Ebersol says the flex scheduling allowed NBC to charge as much as $400,000 per 30-second spot for scatter advertising during late season games.