Football Overwhelms The Competition

The Dallas Cowboys’ matchup with the Washington Redskins handed NBC another Sunday night victory, easily overshadowing two competing season premieres on CBS and ABC. Excluding the pregame show and adjusting for time-zone discrepancies, NBC drew 18.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s estimates. Meanwhile, ABC’s premiere of ”Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” with Marlee Matlin as a guest team leader, garnered 10.9 million viewers in back-to-back episodes from 8 to 10 p.m. Its performance just bested the start of CBS’s 10th ”Amazing Race,” which drew 10.1 million total viewers from 8:30 to 10. In the vaunted demographic of adults 18 to 49, however, neither show could top Fox’s durable comedy lineup, second only to football: ”The Simpsons” at 8 (8.9 million), ”American Dad” at 8:30 (7.7 million) and ”Family Guy” at 9 (9.3 million). The audience notably dropped off at 9:30 for Michael Rapaport’s ”War at Home” (6.7 million).