'Sunday Night Football' Is 2015’s Most Watched Show

Sunday Night Football was the most-watched regularly scheduled series on TV in 2015, according to year-end figures from Nielsen.

SNF drew 23.3 million viewers for NBC.

CBS had the next two most-popular shows with sitcom The Big Bang Theory averaging 21.1 million viewers and drama NCIS drawing 20.9 million.

A cable show, AMC’s The Walking Dead came in fourth in viewers with 19.7 million. Rounding out the top 10 were Fox’s Empire, Thursday Night Football on CBS and the NFL Network, CBS’ NCIS: New Orleans, NBC’s Sunday Night Football Pre-Kick show, CBS’ Blue Bloods and ABC’s Dancing With the Stars.

The most-watched individual programs were nearly all football or football related, topped by the Super Bowl, which aired on NBC in February and drew an average viewership of 115.2 million people.

The only non-football related show among the top 10 was The Oscars, which drew 38.6 million.

In addition to NFL playoff games, the list including the new college football championship game on ESPN and the episode of NBC’s The Blacklist that aired following the Super Bowl. The figures are based on persons two years old and up, with live viewing plus seven days of time-shifted viewing included.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.