Eagles-Jaguars London game overrun appears to have hurt Fox, CBS pregame show viewership

Fox and CBS have long been frustrated by the NFL's ever-encroaching international regular-season slate, with 9:30 a.m. ET kickoffs from Europe having the potential to deflate viewership for their pregame shows.

Those fears seemed to materialize last Sunday, thanks to a London game that started late and ran long.

Sunday's Week 5 began with the Jacksonville Jaguars taking on the Philadelphia Eagles at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. The game, which was broadcast on NFL Network, started slowly after two players were ejected during the opening kickoff following a play that required a lengthy review. Several penalties and reviews kept it sluggish, stretching the game to almost four hours of TV time. By the time Jaguars kicker Cam Little nailed a 57-yard field goal to win, it was 1:15 p.m. ET, and the early-afternoon games on Fox and CBS were already well underway.

Awful Announcing's Drew Lerner wondered if we'd see NFL fans' pulled-focus show up in the ratings , and it certainly appears to have made an impact.

The Week 5 edition of Fox NFL Kickoff averaged 1.123 million viewers. That's the lowest figure of the season so far, though not by much, as Week 4's show garnered 1.184 million. Previous weeks averaged north of 1.4 million viewers, however, suggesting Week 4 was also likely affected by the 9:30 a.m. ET kick (Colts-Commanders in London). That international contest ended around 12:45 p.m. ET, giving viewers time to switch to the noon pregame shows before 1:00 p.m. kickoffs.

The Week 5 drop-off is far more apparant in those noon pregame shows, however.

Fox NFL Sunday drew 3.797 million viewers last Sunday, a significant drop from the previous four weeks of the NFL season. After a Week 1 debut of 4.967 million viewers, the show drew 4.854 million in Week 2, 4.541 million in Week 3, and 4.436 million in Week 4. While the show's ratings were settling after the highly anticipated season start, a 14% dip is far from normal.

The same significant drop appears in the Week 5 ratings for CBS's The NFL Today , which pulled in 2.818 million viewers last Sunday. That's an 11.5% drop from the previous week (3.183 million). That pregame show started the season with audiences of 3.654 million (Week 1), 3.375 million (Week 2), and 3.873 million (Week 3). The falloff in the last two weeks is noticeable.

What can CBS and Fox do about it? Not much, for now. They'll have to suck it up and hope for a quick turnaround in Week 6 (Texans-Jaguars in London) and Week 7 (Steelers-Saints in Paris). Following a reprieve in Week 8, another 9:30 a.m. kickoff awaits in Week 9.

Much to Fox's delight, they acquired Week 10's 9:30 a.m. kickoff from Munich (Patriots-Lions). The Week 11 Vikings-49ers game in Mexico City is a Sunday Night Football game on NBC, ending the season's international slate .

It's not all bad news for CBS either: their broadcast of the Ravens-Cowboys showdown in Brazil averaged 24.9 million viewers, the most-watched NFL International Series game in history .

So, for now, Fox and CBS will have to take the good with the bad and accept sacrificing some of their pregame audience to the NFL scheduling gods.