TV News: ‘Sunday Night Football’ Holds Sunday Reign Over ‘Pan Am,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘The Amazing Race’

Submitted by TimBMartens on September 26, 2011 - 11:33am

CHICAGO – The overnight totals have come in and it is no surprise to find that football was the leader of Sunday night. The Steelers and Colts squared off at Lucas Oil Stadium and reached a 7.2 rating with adults 18-49. While this is the top rating of the night, it is down 22% from last year’s week three Sunday night football matchup when the Jets took on the Dolphins in Miami.

On ABC, the premiere of the new series “Pan Am” posted a 3.1 rating, 7% higher than the season premiere of “Brothers & Sisters” which held the 9 p.m. CST time slot last year. “Desperate Housewives” dropped 28% to a 3.1 rating and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” posted a 1.3 and 2.3 for the two hours of the show.

FOX kicked off its first animation domination Sunday of the year with some fair ratings. “The Simpsons” was up 3% with a 3.8 rating, “The Cleveland Show” stayed even with a 3.1, “Family Guy” was down 9% with a 4.1 rating, and “American Dad” stayed at par from last year with a 3.0.

Take note that many of these totals could change when the actual numbers come in, but more than likely the changes will come from CBS, which had overruns due to late football games.

The overnight CBS totals had “The Amazing Race” lead with a 3.0 (down 21%), followed by “60 Minutes” with a 2.6 (down 16%), and “The Good Wife” and “CSI: Miami” both posting a 2.2 rating (down 12% and 31% respectively). Again, these numbers may shift quite a bit when the actual totals fully show the viewers and ratings properly. The overruns from games skew numbers and the ratings could be slightly higher or lower for each of these shows.