| Vwr (000) |
HH | Vwr/ ESPN |
HH/ ESPN |
|
| ESPN |
827 |
0.6 |
827 |
0.6 |
| NFLN |
256 |
0.2 |
353 |
0.3 |
| ESPN2 |
229 |
0.2 |
229 |
0.2 |
| GOLF |
150 |
0.1 |
179 |
0.1 |
| MLBN |
91 |
0.1 |
127 |
0.1 |
| FS1 |
81 |
0.0 |
89 |
0.1 |
| NBCSN |
80 |
0.0 |
100 |
0.1 |
| NBATV |
45 |
0.0 |
73 |
0.0 |
| ESPNU |
41 |
0.0 |
54 |
0.0 |
| FS2 |
13 |
0.0 |
34 |
0.0 |
If you’re Fox Sports 1, what good things can you take away from your first week? Well, the late-morning reairs of the previous night’s Fox Sports Live are beating all their non-ESPN competition, and Fox Football Daily isn’t that far off from beating MLB Tonight and beat the Crossover fairly handily the few times they went head-to-head, but other than that your studio shows are coming in last in all time periods, which shouldn’t be happening to the sports network with better reach than any network not named ESPN or ESPN2. The fact is that FS1 bungled the launch; they had to lock down distribution with the satellite companies and Time Warner Cable, and even after that was settled, they spent all their time plugging shows during the NFL preseason game the night before the network’s launch, but the closest they came, from the part of it I watched, to telling people how to actually watch all this exciting programming was a brief mention by Curt Menefee of the network’s position on DirecTV. Fox did run ads and a ticker telling people how to find Fox Sports 1… on Speed, you know, the channel that was turning into FS1 to begin with. Result: the only people who knew where Fox Sports 1 was were Speed fans (who have been absolutely irate over the loss of Speed) and UFC fans looking for the fight on the first night. How do I know this is the problem and not the simple fact of being a new network with limited programming?
Of the top 20 programs of the first nine days of Fox Sports 1, 19 are either UFC-related, would fit right in on Speed, or had one of the other two as their lead-in. The exception is an episode of “Fantastic Finishes” on the first day that had an episode of “Fox Sports 1-on-1” as its lead-in that was itself boosted by a Truck Series race and that wouldn’t even be the most-watched program in Fuel history. NASCAR Race Hub, a Speed holdover, is FS1’s most-watched studio show, even when it’s moved to early afternoon by soccer, even managing to beat its much-hyped lead-out Crowd Goes Wild on day 1. The most-watched non-Speed non-UFC program on its own merits, a Monday showing of the college football preview show, is beaten by a double-digit number of Fuel programs. The top non-NASCAR live studio shows are, in order, Fox Sports Live after that first-night fight, said fight’s pregame show, an episode of Crowd Goes Wild that had a Nationwide practice as its lead-in and more than doubled any prior episode after CGW had lost viewers every single day all week despite having UEFA Champions League games as a lead-in Tuesday and Wednesday, the second hour of FSL on night 1, and finally, the premiere of Fox Football Daily at 128,000 viewers, same as a high school football game later in the week. Even that first-night UFC card, which was of PPV quality, should have reached into the general area of the Fox cards and certainly should have been the most-watched cable card of the short Fox era.
We’ll see how this hypothesis plays out as the college football season progresses, and we’ll see if Fox realizes it as the football season and baseball pennant chase progress as well. In any case, it’s probably not a good sign that both FS1 and FS2 did worse in total viewers than their more narrowly-focused predecessors did the previous week.
All numbers are in thousands of viewers and are from Son of the Bronx.
| Approx. 6-10 AM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
| ESPN: SportsCenter (6-9 avg.) | 525 | 463 | 392 | 398 | 418 |
| ESPN2: Mike and Mike | 213 | 170 | 183 | 181 | 176 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live (6-9 avg.) | 28 | 16 | 38 | 9 | 20 |
| GOLF: Morning Drive (7-9 avg.) | 47 | 58 | 55 | 65* | 99* |
| NFLN: NFLAM | 110 | 103 | 75 | 104 | 114 |
| MLBN: Quick Pitch (6-9 avg.) | 35 | 21 | 38 | 32 | 39 |
*Includes additional half-hour to 9:30
| Approx. 9 AM-Noon ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
| ESPN: SportsCenter (9-12 avg.) | 415 | 340 | 366 | 356 | 428 |
| ESPN2: First Take (10-12) | 416 | 300 | 354 | 323 | 265 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live (9-12 avg.) | 46 | 30 | 26† | 28 | n/a |
| GOLF: Morning Drive (9-11 avg.) | 40 | 31 | 33 | n/a | n/a |
| NBCSN: The Dan Patrick Show | 30 | 20 | 25 | 24 | 40 |
| ESPNU: The Herd (10-1) | 74 | 44 | 51 | 35 | 39 |
| MLBN: Quick Pitch (9-1 avg.) | 28 | 30* | 32* | 44 | 33 |
*9-11 average only; Thursday’s average 9-12 only
†Does not include 10 AM hour (NCWTS practice)
| 3 PM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
| ESPN: NFL Insiders | 236* | 390 | 407 | 437 | n/a |
| ESPN2: SportsNation | n/a* | 192 | 150 | n/a | n/a |
| MLBN: The Rundown (2-4) | 43 | 83 | 54 | n/a | 79 |
*NFL Insiders aired on ESPN2
| 4 PM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
| ESPN2: NFL Live | 391 | 275 | 347 | n/a | n/a |
| FS1: Fox Soccer Daily (4-4:30) | 39 | 83* | 57* | 29 | n/a |
| FS1: NASCAR Race Hub (4:30-5) | 98 | 116* | 166* | 151 | n/a |
| MLBN: MLB Now | 41 | 96 | n/a | 134† | 59 |
*UEFA Champions League coverage 2:30-5; Race Hub aired 12 PM Tuesday, 1:30 Wednesday
†Began following Diamondbacks/Reds
| 5 PM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
| ESPN2: College Football Live (5-5:30) | 264 | 240 | 36* | n/a | 152 |
| ESPN2: ESPNFC (5:30-6) | 143 | 141 | n/a | 55 | 65 |
| FS1: Crowd Goes Wild | 74 | 44 | 36 | 29 | 179† |
| MLBN: Intentional Talk | 111 | 104 | n/a | 96 | 76 |
| ESPNU: College Football Live (5:30-6) | 153 | 99 | 32 | 78 | 75 |
*Aired on ESPNU
†Had Nationwide qualifying as lead-in
| 6 PM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
| ESPN: SportsCenter | 613 | 679† | 610 | 894† | 713 |
| FS1: Fox Football Daily | 128 | 111 | 69 | 72 | 76 |
| NBCSN: The Crossover | n/a | 23 | n/a | 12 | 17 |
| NFLN: NFL Total Access (7 ET) | 210 | 236 | 181 | 287 | 311 |
| MLBN: MLB Tonight | 147 | 122 | 138* | 100 | 108‡ |
*6:30-8
†Less than half an hour due to LLWS games going long; Thursday had an additional 126k on ESPN2
‡Two hours leading up to live game at 8 ET
| 11 PM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| ESPN: SportsCenter | 1940 | 624 | 974 | 1608 | 552 | 792 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live | 82 | 61 | 66 | 57 | n/a | 60 |
| NFLN: NFL Total Access | 152 | 329 | 376 | 202 | 181* | n/a |
*Re-air of 7 ET episode at 10 ET
| Midnight ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| ESPN: SportsCenter | 1144 | 596 | 792 | 995 | 517 | 1058 |
| ESPN2: Baseball Tonight | 196* | 135 | 118 | 103* | 120 | 113* |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live | 33 | 50 | 47 | 72 | n/a | 53 |
| MLBN: Quick Pitch | n/a | n/a | 129† | n/a | 138 | 151 |
*Aired at 1 AM; Monday followed baseball game, Thursday followed NFL Live (130k)
†11 PM airing had 216K
| 1 AM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| ESPN: SportsCenter | 826 | 414 | 485 | 637 | 597 | 915 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live | 25 | 62 | 5* | 38 | 24 | 43 |
| MLBN: Quick Pitch | 54 | 89 | 52 | 48 | 100 | 86 |
*Least-watched FS1 program of entire week (and it was live!)
| 2 AM ET |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| ESPN: SportsCenter | 625 | 289 | 385 | 544 | 567 | 770 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live | 30 | 87 | 21 | 12 | 23 | 34 |
| MLBN: Quick Pitch | 51 | 46 | 55 | 37 | 74 | 61 |
morganwick.com
| Sunday Night | |
| ESPN: SportsCenter 11 | 1044 |
| ESPN: SportsCenter 12:30 | 512 |
| ESPN2: ESPNFC 12 | 84 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live 11 | 55 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live 12 | 55 |
| FS1: Fox Sports Live 1 | 41 |
| NFLN: NFL Total Access 11 | 237 |