Sunday night's Peyton Manning-Indy reunion was a big ratings winner for NBC

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

As expected, Sunday night's much-hyped return of Peyton Manning to Indianapolis was a big ratings winner for NBC.

NBC put out a press release, saying the Colts win over the Broncos averaged 26.9 million viewers, ranking it as the most-watched October NFL primetime telecast in 21 years (33.0 million viewers for Cowboys-Eagles on ABC, 10/5/92) and the most-watched October primetime show of any kind since 2005. 

The broadcast continued the dominance of NBC's Sunday Night Football, which has been the most-watched show in all of primetime television the last several years.

NBC's SNF is averaging 22.7 million viewers so far this season, the best-seven-week start for an NFL primetime package in 17 years going back to 1996 when ABC's Monday Night Football was going strong and averaging 24.8 million viewers.

The Sunday Night Football slate is up five percent over last season when it averaged 21.6 million viewers.

Viewership on Sunday night was up 54% from last year’s Week 7 game (17.5 million for Steelers-Bengals) and is the fourth-highest Sunday viewership in the eight-year history of NBC’s primetime package (not including “NFL Kickoff” games).

The following are the most-watched Sunday NBC regular-season games since the debut of Sunday Night Football in 2006:

Game, Date	Avg. Viewers	Highlights
Dallas-Wash., 12/30/12	30.3 million	Rookie Robert Griffin III leads Redskins to NFC East title with 28-18 victory in “win-and-in” Week 17 matchup. Game posted highest regular-season primetime overnight on any network in 15 years.
Dallas-NY Giants, 1/1/12	27.62 million	Eli Manning passes for 346 yards and 3 TDs to lead Giants to NFC East title with 31-14 victory in “win-and-in” Week 17 matchup.
Pittsburgh-Denver, 9/9/12	27.57 million	Peyton Manning debuts with a new team (Denver) after missing ’11 season with neck injury, and throws his 400th career TD pass in Broncos’ come-from-behind 31-19 victory.
Denver-Indy, 10/20/13	26.9 million	QB Andrew Luck accounts for 4 TDs to lead Colts to a 39-33 win over Broncos in Peyton Manning’s return to Indianapolis.
Dallas-NY Jets, 9/11/11	25.8 million	Jets come back from 14-point, fourth-quarter deficit to win season-opener 27-24 on Nick Folk’s field goal with 27 seconds remaining.