Its been a long decade for the Comcast-owned net to claim the total audience top spot, but SNF delivered the prize

If NBC didn’t already have a lot of love for the Dallas Cowboys, the Comcast-owned net should be sending America’s Team chocolates and roses today.

Thanks to a record-breaking viewership on September 29, NBC has broken CBS’ decade long hold on scoring the largest audience for the Fall season premiere week.

Aided in no small part by the 24.1 million sets of eyeballs tuning in for the New Orleans Saints to end the Cowboys’ unbeaten run this season, the Peacock has averaged 7.5 million viewers during the opening days of the new small screen season.

Having last lost premiere week to ABC back in that long-ago era of 2008 and without any primetime NFL games for the second year in a row, CBS drew 6.9 million viewers for the week ending on the second to last day of September. The live sports leaning Fox, which had a good opening for on September 26, was in third place in viewers with an averaged audience of 5.8 million. Disney-owned ABC can up fourth in the Big 4 with 4.7 million viewers.

Clearly revealing how live viewing is waning (if you hadn’t picked on that the past few years already), the opening week of the 2018/2019 TV season saw CBS with 8.4 million viewers on average and NBC with 7.9 million. ABC had 5.4 million and Fox was then in fourth with 3.9 million watching.

Victory dances aside in the total viewership category, NBC also was back in the demo cockpit too this past week.

For the eighth consecutive year, the net is either tops among adults 18-49 or tied for the first spot in a premiere week. Again fueled by primetime pro-football, the opening days of the 2019/2020 TV season has NBC with a 1.8 rating in the key demo. The NFL and The Masked Singer propelled Fox are a close second with a 1.7, with CBS next with a 1.0 and ABC after that with a 0.9.

Outside the Big 4, the CW pegged a 0.1 demo rating for its premiere week and 0.6 million viewers.

All of which is to say that Jerry Jones’ team are big boys ..so, NBC, send a lot of chocolate.