Early indications are that the "miniseries event" actually tied a rerun of a documentary on the same subject, and barely edged out the eighteenth season premiere of The Simpsons.
The New York vs. Indianapolis game earned rival NBC a 15.1/23 rating, according to overnight returns.
Part one of ABC's "Path to 9/11," in comparison, earned a rating of 8.2/12--about half as many viewers. This tied a CBS repeat of a documentary, also about the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. The CBS repeat was somewhat handicapped by a half hour delay caused by an overrun of a U.S. Open Tennis match. Read on....
That's not a whole lot of ratings share for something so widely promoted through conservative channels, is it? Twice as many people watched football and the same number watched a re-run of a factual documentary. Does that $40M production aired without commercials still seem like a good investment, ABC/Disney?