Airing the Kansas City Chiefs in prime slots continues to pay off for CBS as Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals smashed a 26-year television record.
The Chiefs-Bengals thriller averaged 27.9million viewers on CBS, which was the network’s most-watched game that took place in September since 1998.
The game was the most watch telecast on a single network since last year’s Super Bowl.
The Chiefs’ 26-25 victory over the Bengals featured a Harrison Butker field goal as time expired to keep Kansas City undefeated early in the season at 2-0, while the Bengals fell to 0-2.
It was the sixth straight Chiefs game with Taylor Swift in attendance, with Kansas City not losing a single one of those contests. Swift’s front row seat to watch boyfriend Travis Kelce has been lucky for Andy Reid‘s team.
Harrison Butker’s last-second field goal helped the Chiefs win in front of a huge TV audience
CBS’ streaming app, Paramount+, also had a huge win with Cincinnati-Kansas City, with Sunday being its most-streamed day for NFL games of all-time, with Chiefs-Bengals being the most-watched individual game ever on the platform.
Bengals-Chiefs was in the featured slot for CBS on Sunday, with its viewership up 8 percent over the same time slot last season.
CBS’ NFL coverage is having its best viewership turnout through two weeks of the league season since 1998 as well.
The network is averaging just under 20million viewers per game, up 5 percent from last year’s lofty audience numbers.
CBS will likely only have one more chance to break that September record, as the Chiefs next game against Atlanta will be part of Sunday Night Football, which airs on NBC.
The Chiefs travel to face the Los Angeles Chargers on September 29, which will also be part of the network’s featured afternoon window.
