Macy’s Parade & NFL Ratings Have A Good Thanksgiving; Up From 2017

It was cold as Hell in NYC for the 92nd Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade yesterday but, along with that New Orleans and Atlanta Falcons primetime game, the ratings were hot for NBC on Thanksgiving.

Along with a historic kiss, the morning parade saw the likes of the Grinch, Frozen’s Olaf, Tom Turkey, clowns, marching bands, a lot of security, Goku, Lady Liberty herself, SpongeBob SquarePants and the Red Mighty Morphin Power Ranger all heading down Sixth Avenue in front of the crowds and cameras.

Only up 2% from 2017, the parade was still a showstopper for the Comcast-owned net with a 12.8 in metered market results. Excluding sports, that’s the best any show or special has performed in the early metrics on the Big 4 since the Academy Awards in March. It is also the third best metered markets result that the annual Manhattan march has achieved in the past 13 years, with only the 13.5 rating of 2013 and 2015 doing better.

Speaking of sports, it was a busy day of NFL match-ups up and down the dial with the Dallas Cowboys beating the Washington Redskins 31-23 on Fox and the New Orleans Saints thrashing the Atlanta Falcons 31-17 on NBC in primetime.

Both big holiday games were up double-digits over 2017 with the Fox game scoring a 14.1 in metered markets and the NBC face-off delivering an 11.4 rating. That’s a 10% rise for the Rupert Murdoch-own broadcaster over last year’s Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions game.

On NBC, the blowout of sorts was up a hefty 18% over the truly terrible Redskins vs. New York Giants game of November 23, 2017, which also saw more of the player protests that seemingly hobbled the league last year.

That battle of last year ended up with 16.9 million viewers and a 5.1/20 rating among adults 18-49. Currently in fast affiliates and certain to change in the final numbers, last night’s game, which was the 10th win in a row for the surging Saints, is pulling in an audience of 18.34 million with a 5.5/24 rating in the key demo.

Needless to say, NBC easily won the Thanksgiving primetime.

Amidst mainly repeats on CBS, the net’s only original was a holiday themed Murphy Brown (0.8/3) that was down a tenth from last week. In the absence of its usual TNF, Fox was all MasterChef Junior: Celebrity Showdown (1.9/8) last night as Gordon Ramsey brought home the second highest rated show of the night plus 6 million viewers.

ABC also went unscripted too with a 20/20 (0.4/2) and a special and not very well watched Meghan’s New Life: The Real Princess Diaries (0.3/1). With 2.7 million views, the latter profile of the former Suits star was the second least watched show of the night, just ahead of the 2.03 million who tuned in for the I’m Coming Home (0.3/1) special at 10 PM, also on ABC.

Have fun with those leftovers.