NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A struggling Cam Ward has the one-win Titans trending in the right direction in one surprising department.
I've learned the team’s local television ratings have actually ticked up slightly this season despite the team being worse than it was when it won three games in 2024.
Last year, the team averaged a 14.2 rating. Through nine games this season, that number is 14.4.
The driving force behind that is likely curiosity about the rookie quarterback, even though he owns the NFL's lowest passer rating (72.1) and lowest completion percentage (57.6) and has thrown the fewest touchdown passes among regular starters in the NFL.
Nielsen, the company that measures ratings, completed a transition to its "Big Data + Panel" media measurement method on Sept. 1. That system strives to assess audience behavior better as conventional TV viewing in no longer the norm and they are looking to incorporate streaming and more.
TITANS GAME-BY-GAME RATINGS
| @ DEN | LAR | IND | @ HOU | @ ARI | @ LV | NE | @ IND | LAC |
| 16.2 | 15.8 | 14.1 | 13.2 | 13.0 | 11.3 | 15.7 | 16.1 | 14.8 |
The different measurements make it difficult to compare year-to-year numbers and virtually impossible to compare historical numbers.
“There is more skepticism about Nielsen numbers these days,” said Brian Steinberg, senior TV editor of Variety and a graduate school classmate of mine. “They still matter, but the TV networks feel they've been slow to move with streaming.
“Still, it's sort of like complaining about the electric company. You still need the service they sell.”
Nielsen began to phase in the methodology changes in a way that negatively impacted numbers in January of 2022.
The Titans posted week-by-week ratings as part of their press packet through last season. In 2022, the season average was 21.2, in 2023 it was 18.2, and then in 2024 it was 14.2.
Because they don't hold as much weight, and because the numbers have been down, they have become harder to find. Local CBS affiliate WTVF, which has televised seven Titans games so far and will carry 10 or 11 overall, used to trumpet them regularly but has gone silent.
The Titans' Week 6 game in Las Vegas against the Raiders that kicked off at 3:05 p.m. CT was the second-lowest rated game in team history (11.3), trailing only 2024’s season finale against the Jaguars. That game, on a rainy day in Nashville, was also a record-low in home attendance.
The top-rated game this season so far was opening day, a 16.2 for a Sept. 7 late-afternoon game in Denver. That's closely followed by Week 8 at the Colts (16.1).
With eight games left, if the Titans continue their poor play, it's certainly possible their ratings will bottom out and wind up worse than last season. In 2024, they finished as the NFL's worst team and had the No. 1 pick in the draft, which they used to select Ward.
A ratings number traditionally represented the households tuned in to a given program among all households with televisions.
Another, less frequently used measure is share.
The share is traditionally households tuned in to a given program among all households tuned in to TV at that time. The Titans have a 44 share this season as compared to a 45 in 2025.
According to USTVDB, the Nashville television market is composed of 1,199,400 TV households.
