The NFL has received disappointing TV ratings this past season. CBS chairman Les Moonves and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell held a top-level meeting, discussing how TV networks and the league can work together to boost TV viewership and facilitate professional Football games in a speedy fashion.
The 2016 presidential election impacted NFL ratings, which have declined by roughly 8 percent. Even when the New England Patriots delivered a remarkable Super Bowl comeback win of 25 points over the Atlanta Falcons, Fox still produced the smallest number of TV spectators.
This game attracted 111.3 million viewers, becoming the fifth most-watched TV broadcast in history.
CBS ad revenue sank
Moonves said on Wednesday that CBS -- which has a broadcast rights deal with the NFL for $1 billion -- aired few "Thursday Night Football" games, which led to a drop in company's quarterly advertising revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2016, the media company's ad revenue reportedly sank by 3 percent to $3.52 billion from $3.59 billion year-over-year.
As a part of the discussion, Moonves and Goodell sought various strategies to entertain and boost TV viewers. While they were thinking about adjusting the format or the length of ads, Moonves noted that the media company has no intention of downsizing the number of advertisements to be sold on every game.
NFL looking to make games shorter and boost viewership
Despite low ratings, The CBS chairman still views the NFL as "the premier property in all of media." For the upcoming seasons, the NFL seeks to modify its falling ratings problem. Goodell noted that the league could establish game management agendas to accelerate the pace of games, including the possibility of cutting down the number of commercials and reducing referee announcements on instant replays.
According to Fortune, Moonves noted: "If there are ways of doing advertising in different ways that are equally beneficial, we're looking at that, and we're trying to make the game as good an experience as we could make it."
