The early Sunday NFL divisional round game where the Green Bay Packers edged the Dallas Cowboys averaged a 26.2 overnight household rating and a 49 share marking the highest rating for an early Sunday divisional round game on any network since 1996.
Update: Haven’t seen the final household rating yet, but the game averaged 44.4 million viewers.
The Indianapolis Colts vs. Denver Broncos averaged a 25.4 overnight household rating with a 41 share marking the second-highest-rated Sunday Divisional game in 19 years (trailing Jets/Pats on 1/16/11 and Colts-Chiefs in 1996).
Update: have some additional data on Colts/Broncos: final national household rating/share was a 23.9/39 averging 41.8 million viewers.
Overnight household rating = the live+same day DVR overnight metered-market household rating from the top 56 Nielsen television markets. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) account for about 70% of the US TV-viewing population. The overnight household rating is the percentage of the households that were tuned-in in those markets. The share is the percentage of the households that were watching TV at the time.
Example: a 21 household rating with a 40% share means that on average 21% of all the households (in those 56 markets) were tuned-in and that 40% of the households watching TV at the time were tuned-in.
Final national numbers work the same way but all 210 markets are included in the measurement.