Advertisement

American Music Awards Hit Ratings Low Note As ‘Sunday Night Football’ Dominates

ABC’s telecast of the annual American Music Awards on Sunday with Taraji P. Henson as host was the latest awards show that implemented socially distanced and COVID-friendly production parameters to deliver live performances. The ceremony even had a live, socially distanced masked audience watching from the rafters.

The result: the AMAs hit a new low with a 1.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 3.80 million viewers in early Nielsen Live+Same Day data, a seven-tenths drop from last year’s telecast on the same weekend (the 2019 show adjusted up to a 1.8 rating and 6.73 million viewers). America’s Funniest Home Videos (0.5, 3.99M), the lead-in to the AMAs, also took a hit compared with its last original.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football continues to set the pace with the nail-biter of a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders (4.2, 15.17M), which the Chiefs won thanks to Patrick Mahomes’ 22-yard touchdown pass with 28 seconds left to secure the 35-31 win. The numbers for SNF are a huge boost — five tenths to be specific — from last week’s New England Patriots-Baltimore Ravens matchup. As with all live sporting events, though, the numbers will likely be adjusted in finals.

The same is true at CBS, where things were down at 60 Minutes (0.9, 9.02M) compared with last week’s interview with Barack Obama. NCIS: Los Angeles (0.6, 5.62M) was also down, taking a four-tenths hit, while NCIS: New Orleans (0.5, 4.79M) held steady in the early data, which was impacted by NFL overrun.

Fox’s Sunday night animation block was boosted by The OT spillover, and is up in the demo so far with The Simpsons (1.5, 4.68M) and Bless the Harts (0.7, 2.02M). Bob’s Burgers (0.6, 1.67M) and Family Guy (0.6, 1.61M) both ticked down a tenth.

Elsewhere, the CW Pandora (0.1, 288,000) was up from the 0.0 it received with its last fresh episode, while Outpost (0.1, 382,000) held steady.

More from Deadline

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.