Monday Night Football, which has morphed before our collective eyes from a cable property to an ABC production, is generating the ratings that typically flow from being on broadcast TV.
The Week 3 game between the Eagles and Bears racked up 22.6 million viewers on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN Deportes. (There was no ManningCast in Week 3.)
It’s the second-largest Week 3 Monday night audience since ESPN acquired the package. The biggest audience happened for last year’s Week 3 game between the Lions and Ravens, at 22.8 million.
To date, the Monday Night Football audience is up by 20 percent, thanks to the three-letter footprint and a little creative accounting.