Packers-Vikings sets NBC ratings record
The Vikings at Packers telecast was the most-watched and highest-rated game in the five-year history of "Sunday Night Football" on NBC-TV.
According The Nielsen Company there were 25.7 million viewers of the game at Lambeau Field, which Green Bay won, 28-24. The rating for the game was 15.4 or more than 17.8 million households.
The final rating for the game in the Milwaukee market was 53.1 or 478,484 households. A Packers at Chicago Bears telecast on Sept. 27 had a 55.0 combined rating on ESPN and WISN-TV (Channel 12), which is the highest local rating for any regular-season or playoff game in the Milwaukee market since Nov. 29, 2007, when a Packers at Dallas Cowboys telecast on the NFL Network and Channel 12 had a combined rating of 55.2.
The rating for the Sunday night game in Milwaukee was the highest among 56 metered markets in the country. Following Milwaukee the highest ratings belonged to: Minneapolis (51.5), Las Vegas (23.5), New Orleans (21.5), Norfolk (21.4), Kansas City (20.4), Phoenix and Nashville (19.0 each), Chicago (18.7) and Oklahoma City (18.5).
National audiences just love the story of Brett Favre of the Vikings playing against his former team.
The Packers at Vikings game on Oct. 5, 2009, carried on ESPNs Monday Night Football had more than 21.8 million viewers, making it the most-viewed show ever on cable television. The Nov. 1 game that followed last season, Vikings at Packers, had 29.8 million viewers, the second most-viewed game on Fox Sports since it started carrying NFL games in 1994.