Sports TV Business

The Studio Show Scorecard for Week of November 4-10

by

PT Rnk

TD Rnk

 Oct Distr.
(000)		 PT Vwr
(000)		 LW/LY TD Vwr
(000)		 TD HH TD Vwr
LW/LY

1

=

1

=

98891

3559

+49%

1446

1.0

+23%

=

=

85%

3559

+16%

1446

+22%

+13%

4

-1

2

=

98861

557

-8%

342

0.2

+4%

-1

=

85%

557

-16%

342

+1%

+14%

2

=

3

=

72464

947

-0%

273

0.2

-3%

=

=

63%

1292

+14%

372

+3%

+14%

3

+1

4

+2

90121

630

+167%

160

0.1

+89%

+1

=

78%

691

+237%

175

+108%

+62%

6

=

5

-1

79145

148

-14%

79

0.0

-13%

+1

+4

68%

185

+70%

99

-25%

+76%

5

=

6

+1

59950

170

-5%

73

0.0

-4%

=

=

52%

280

+1%

121

-22%

+13%

7

=

7

+1

75603

107

+5%

71

0.0

-4%

-1

-2

65%

140

+1%

93

-1%

+4%

8

=

8

-3

82964

105

+6%

71

0.0

-20%

+1

=

72%

125

+78%

85

-16%

+55%

9

=

9

=

75829

95

+48%

64

0.0

+16%

-1

-3

65%

124

+16%

84

+12%

-1%

10

=

10

=

71026

27

-10%

21

0.0

-32%

=

=

61%

38

-7%

29

-96%

+32%

Fox Sports 1 had its best week since the relaunch this week, mostly on the back of Oklahoma-Baylor, NASCAR, and UFC. More encouraging than that is the raw number, which seems to put them closer to the class of ESPN, ESPN2, and NFL Network than the morass below them, even managing to beat ESPN2 outright in primetime. As I’ve said before, though, most of the effect on FS1’s studio shows, if any, shouldn’t turn up until next week, but you should be able to draw your own conclusions from Friday’s numbers. For now, let it be said that the record for most-watched edition of Fox Sports Live remains the one on launch night.

ESPN2 Fri 11:54p 549
ESPN2 Fri 12:52a* 373
ESPN2 Tue 12:42a* 298
ESPN2 Wed 12a 221
ESPN2 Thu 5a 137
ESPN2 Thu 11:47p 124
ESPN2 Thu 12:47a 121
ESPNEWS Tue 11:21p 92
ESPNEWS Fri 11p 81
ESPN2 Tue 5a 80
ESPNEWS Wed 11p 76
ESPNEWS Fri 5a 69
ESPN2 Wed 5a 59
ESPNEWS Mon 11:32p 45
ESPNEWS Mon 2a 43
ESPNEWS Tue 1a 41
ESPNEWS Sat 9a 40
ESPNEWS Tue 2a 38
ESPNEWS Sat 5a 31
ESPNEWS Thu 2a 29
ESPNEWS Fri 9a 27
ESPNEWS Fri 2a 21
ESPNEWS Wed 9a 19
ESPNEWS Wed 1a 16
ESPNEWS Thu 9a 15
ESPNEWS Tue 9a 8
ESPNEWS Wed 2a 5

One thing that has stuck out for would-be fans of ESPN2’s Olbermann, especially on Awful Announcing, is that the show has regularly been shuffled back and forth, airing at random times and shuffling between ESPN2 and ESPNEWS. ESPN has scheduled it like any other postgame highlights show, but it’s really not; Olbermann doesn’t even do the show live when its first airing is delayed, so whatever highlights there are must be over by midnight no matter what. It doesn’t help that the show is affected by live events running long on both ESPN and ESPN2, because SportsCenter gets bumped to ESPN2 when live events on ESPN run long.

What effect is all the shuffling having on Olbermann’s ratings? At right is every airing of Olbermann this week on both ESPN2 and ESPNEWS; asterisks indicate abbreviated airings. Not once this week did Olbermann air at its normal time on ESPN2, always getting at least slightly bumped; next week we’ll see a Thursday edition of Olbermann that started on time and collected 108,000 viewers, far from the most-watched airing of that week but beaten by only one airing on ESPNEWS this week or next (one, unsurprisingly, that also started on time). Unsurprisingly the first-run airings on ESPN2 are the most popular, and the most popular airings on ESPNEWS are likewise the first-run episodes – but Monday appears to have fallen curiously behind, ranking behind a 5 AM airing later in the week, and its only airing on ESPN2, at 5 AM, wasn’t the most-watched 5 AM airing of Olbermann on ESPN2 for the week. Did people think there wasn’t going to be an episode of Olbermann that day due to the World Series of Poker? Clearly starting late even on News didn’t have an effect on Tuesday’s episode…

To get a better sense of how delays may be affecting overall viewership, here are the total number of viewers for every episode of Olbermann this week, counting only full airings:

  Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
Total 176 249 465 370 722
Average 44 50 93 74 144

One thing sticks out: Friday’s first-run airing of Olbermann had more viewers than any other day of the week had in total. In fact, the top three track with the most popular first-run airings on ESPN2, and the other two didn’t have full-length first-run airings before 5 AM ET. Those three first-run airings did better than that 108,000 figure Olbermann had when it started on time. That episode totaled 372,000 viewers across all airings (actually having two re-airs with more viewers than its first-run episode), only barely beating Thursday of this week, and an average of 62,000 per airing, dragged down by ESPNEWS re-airs that topped out at 13,000, beating only two total re-airs from this week.

Of all first-run, daily studio shows on ESPN2, Olbermann’s ratings on its own only really compare favorably to ESPNFC – and considering how opinionated Olbermann is one would expect it to do numbers more on par with what the opinion and debate shows earlier in the day are getting. From that it’s tempting to conclude that the frustration of trying to find Olbermann when it’s on is in fact turning people away from the show – especially people who can’t switch to ESPNEWS for some reason (the first-run numbers from this Tuesday’s episode on ESPNEWS aren’t that far off from that 108,000 figure). But look at that 549,000 figure at the top of the chart again. That’s not just inflated by its lead-in; that’s over half of the lead-in provided by the Louisville-Connecticut football game, which had 1.041 million viewers. If ESPN likes having some sort of general-sports postgame show to retain the viewership from whatever ESPN2 had on that night, it’s clear that Olbermann is at least succeeding on that front, no matter how poor a fit it might seem. Especially if it can keep beating Fox Sports Live.

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.) 596 888 512 390 695
ESPN2: Mike and Mike 281 331 295 305 280
FS1: Fox Sports Live (6-9 avg.) 21 18 7 29 29
GOLF: Morning Drive (7-9 avg.) 56 33 19 n/a n/a
NFLN: NFLAM 141 65 73 81 144
NBATV: NBA Gametime (6-9 avg.) 25 45 28 48 33*

*Inside the NBA

Approx. 9 AM-Noon ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri
ESPN: SportsCenter (9-12 avg.) 514 654 364 364 435
ESPN2: First Take (10-12) 382 468 437 419 351
FS1: Fox Sports Live (9-12 avg.) 22 32 11 25‡ 26
GOLF: Morning Drive (9-11 avg.) 36 27 25 27† 55†
NBCSN: The Dan Patrick Show 40 41 15 19 37
ESPNEWS: Mike and Mike (10-1) 30 46 40 22 34
ESPNU: The Herd (10-1) 74 63 28 52 48
NFLN: NFLAM (10-2) 124 64 78 76 82
MLBN: Hot Stove (9-11) 25 25 9 15 13
NBATV: NBA Gametime (9-12 avg.) 22 33 44 26 41*

*Inside the NBA
†10 AM hour only
‡9-11 average only

3 PM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri
ESPN: NFL Insiders 540 614† 445 434 466
ESPN2: SportsNation 211 134 221 n/a n/a
FS1: Fox Soccer Daily (3:30-4) 32 128‡ 138‡ n/a n/a
ESPNEWS: SportsCenter 68 42 20 65 72
ESPNU: CFB Daily 33 30* 17 34 n/a
MLBN: Intentional Talk (3-3:30) 25 71 13 31 24
MLBN: Clubhouse Confidential (3:30-4) 41 44 38 43 35

*First-run rating for The Experts 1-2:30; 2:30-4 re-air had 35,000 viewers
†Aired from 3-3:30; Mike and Mike’s Best of the NFL 3:30-4 had 652,000 viewrrs
‡UEFA Champions League Soccer 2:30-5 PM

4 PM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri
ESPN: NFL Live 801 674 560 697 667
ESPN2: Highly Questionable (4-4:30) 265 221 300 n/a n/a
ESPN2: Outside the Lines (4:30-5) 265 225 251 n/a n/a
FS1: NASCAR Race Hub 124 102† 97† 106* n/a
ESPNEWS: SportsCenter 49 57 28 83 79
MLBN: Hot Stove 40 30 26 48 14

*Aired 11-11:30 AM
†Aired at noon

5 PM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri
ESPN: Around the Horn (5-5:30) 1118 784 753 812 789
ESPN: PTI (5:30-6) 1301 1101 1007 1035 1050
ESPN2: College Football Live (5-5:30) 163 137 39† 192 84
ESPN2: ESPNFC (5:30-6) 113 74 20^ 82 87
FS1: Crowd Goes Wild 57 37 n/a 42 113
NBCSN: Pro Football Talk (5:30-6:30) 54* 43 37 36 43
ESPNEWS: SportsCenter 137 111 61^ 110 68
ESPNU: College Football Live (5:30-6) 31 41 28 n/a 48
NFLN: NFL Fantasy Live 123 84 n/a‡ 142 170

*Aired 5-6:30
†Aired on ESPNU
‡Pre-empted by two-hour Around the League Live
^Aired on ESPNEWS; SportsCenter was abridged as a result

6 PM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri
ESPN: SportsCenter 1209† 920 783 870 761
ESPN2: Around the Horn (6-6:30) 153 111 199 92^ 62¹
ESPN2: PTI (6:30-7) 247 267 288 97^ 100¹
FS1: Fox Football Daily 55 15 n/a 72 n/a
ESPNEWS: SportsNation n/a 55 33 174^ n/a
NFLN: Around the League Live 185 123 122 87* 171
MLBN: MLB Tonight 47 47~ 52~ 22~ 28
NBATV: The Starters 88 57 73‡ 18 61‡

*Aired 2-5; NFL Total Access 6-8 had 535,000 viewers
†Monday Kickoff from 6-6:30; SportsCenter on ESPNEWS 6:30-7 had 213,000 viewers
‡Aired at 5 ET; Gametime Thursday had 48,000 viewers, while Pregame 6:30 Friday had 91,000 viewers
^SportsNation aired on ESPN2 to make up for earlier pre-emption, bumping ATH and PTI to ESPNEWS
~Coverage of various awards
¹Aired on ESPNEWS

11 PM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat
ESPN: SportsCenter n/a† 262‡ 340‡ n/a 651 169^
FS1: Fox Sports Live 37 67 142 341 88 162
ESPNEWS: Olbermann 45* 92* 76 n/a 81 n/a
NFLN: NFL Total Access 78* 169 125 2512* 159 77

*Aired 11:30-12:30
†SportsCenter on ESPNEWS was folded into 10 PM episode, which had 45,000 viewers
‡Aired on ESPN2
^Aired on ESPNEWS

Midnight ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat
ESPN: SportsCenter 5291 844* 1401 2702 773 216†
ESPN2: Olbermann n/a n/a 221 124 549 n/a
FS1: Fox Sports Live 55 56‡ 91‡ 157 75‡ 64

*Short airing following WSOP
†Aired on ESPNEWS
‡Fox Football Daily

1 AM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat
ESPN: SportsCenter 84* 646 914 1347 626 1021
ESPN2: NBA Tonight (1:30-2) n/a 204† 169 n/a 398 n/a
FS1: Fox Sports Live 30 45 81 39 60 56
NFLN: NFL Fantasy Live 74 136 49 542 97 n/a

*Aired on ESPNEWS; NFL Primetime had 2.174 million viewers
†Aired 1-1:30

2 AM ET

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat
ESPN: SportsCenter 1395 475 599 1011 703 746
ESPN2: NASCAR Now (2-2:30) n/a 100† 134* 126 n/a 294‡
FS1: Fox Sports Live 19 9 60 24 26 77
NFLN: NFL Total Access 36 123 89 343 108 91

*Aired at 1
†Aired at 3
‡College Football Final

Saturday Morning  
ESPN: SportsCenter 8 ET 824
ESPN2: NFL Matchup 8:30 ET 190
FS1: Fox Sports Live 8-10 avg. 50
NBATV: NBA Gametime 8-12 avg. 49
ESPN: College Gameday 9 ET 1877
ESPN2: SportsCenter 9-12 avg. 358
GOLF: Morning Drive 9-11 avg. 96
ESPNU: Dari and Mel 9 ET 25
FS1: Fox College Saturday 10 ET 59
ESPNU: First Take CFB 10 ET 21
ESPNU: Whiparound 11 ET 75

morganwick.com

Sun 7 AM 8 AM 9 AM 10 AM 11 AM Noon

SportsCenter

SportsCenter

SportsCenter

Sunday NFL Countdown

689K/.5

957K/.7

1.013M/.8

2.010M/1.4

OTL

SR

Colin on FB

Fantasy FB Now

219

227

196K/.1

523K/.3

Fox Sports Live

Fox Sports Live

RaceDay

Fox NFL Kickoff

44K/.0

54K/.0

197K/.2

138K/.1

CFB Final

OTL

SR

Colin on FB

SportsCenter

SportsCenter

SportsCenter

177K/.1

92

122

100K/.1

202K/.1

192K/.1

NFL Gameday First

NFL Gameday Morning

175K/.1

490K/.4

MLB Tonight

MLB Tonight

MLB Tonight

MLB Tonight

MLB Tonight

MLB Tonight

9K/.0

8K/.0

7K/.0

17K/.0

18K/.0

21K/.0

NBA Gametime

NBA Gametime

NBA Gametime

NBA Gametime

NBA Gametime

NBA Gametime

43K/.0

57K/.0

39K/.0

42K/.0

45K/.0

27K/.0

Morning Drive on GOLF: 8:30-9:30 38,000, 9:30-10:30 40,000

Afternoon Post/SNF Bridge  
NBC: Hyundai Sunday Night Kickoff (8-8:20) 11,614
ESPN: SportsCenter (7-8:30) 971
NFLN: NFL Gameday Highlights (7:30-8:30) 282

morganwick.com

Sunday Night  
ESPN: SportsCenter 11 633
ESPN: SportsCenter 12:30 800
ESPN2: NASCAR Now 10 319
ESPN2: ESPNFC 12:30 80
FS1: Fox Sports Live 11 58
FS1: Fox Sports Live 12:30 35
NFLN: NFL Gameday Overtime 11:30 266
NFLN: NFL Gameday Final 12 301

morganwick.com

Weekly Shows on ESPN and Networks Not On Chart
ESPN: Monday Night Countdown Mon 6:30p 3308
ESPN: NASCAR Countdown (NSCS) Sun 2p 1398
TNT: Inside the NBA Thu 12:30a 1372
ESPN: E:60 Tue 7p 809
ESPN: BCS Countdown Sun 8:30p 623
ESPN: Top NFL Matchup airing Sun 6:30a 466

morganwick.com

Top 10 Non-ESPN Weekly Shows Not Otherwise On Chart
ESPN2: NASCAR Countdown (NNS) Sat 3:30p 790
FS1: Fox College Thursday Thu 7p 475
NFLN: A Football Life Tue 9p 359
GOLF: Big Break XX: NFL Tue 9p 249
NFLN: NFL Gamecenter Sun 1p 237
NFLN: Playbook AFC Fri 9p 221
ESPN2: NFL Primetime First-Run Mon 2p 218
NFLN: A Football Life Backstory Tue 10p 201
NFLN: Playbook NFC Fri 10p 192
ESPN2: Football Sunday on ESPN Radio Sun 5p 177
NFLN: NFL Gameday Scoreboard Sun 4p 168
ESPN2: NFL Kickoff Fri 6p 162

Top 500 Most-Watched Programs in ESPNU’s First Year of Nielsen Ratings

by

Near as I can tell, ESPNU first became Nielsen-rated just over a year ago, just before the start of November 2012. Here are the 500 (technically 505) most-watched programs over the course of that first year of Nielsen rating from October 29, 2012 through October 27, 2013. A more up-to-date list that will be maintained on a weekly basis will be found here. All numbers from Son of the Bronx.

Read more

Sports Ratings Report for Week of October 28-November 3

by

Sports Ratings Highlights for Week of October 28-November 3

Numbers compiled from a variety of sources, including TV by the Numbers, The Futon Critic, Sports Media Watch, and Son of the Bronx.

 

Vwr (mil)

HH

18-49

Net

NFL: Regional coverage
(main game: Steelers @ Patriots)

23.987

  

7.7

CBS

World Series, Game 6:
Cardinals @ Red Sox

19.178

  

5.7

FOX

Sunday Night Football:
Colts @ Texans

17.04

  

6.3

NBC

World Series, Game 5:
Red Sox @ Cardinals

14.446

  

4.1

FOX

Monday Night Football

11.284

7.0

4.2

ESPN+
Locals

CFB: Miami @ Florida State

8.354

5.1

2.8

ABC

Thursday Night Football

6.915

4.2

2.5

NFLN+
Locals

NBA Opening Night:
Bulls @ Heat

5.373

  

2.5

TNT

CFB: Michigan @ Michigan State

5.2

3.3

  

ABC

CFB: Georgia v. Florida

4.9

3.1

  

CBS

NASCAR

4.179

2.6

1.0

ESPN

NBA Opening Night:
Clippers @ Lakers

3.571

  

1.8

TNT

CFB: Regional coverage

3.5

2.3

  

ABC

CFB: Navy @ Notre Dame

2.6

1.7

  

NBC

Breeder’s Cup Classic

2.118

  

0.4

NBC

Read more

The Studio Show Scorecard for Week of October 28-November 3

by

PT Rnk

TD Rnk

 Oct Distr.
(000)		 PT Vwr
(000)		 LW/LY TD Vwr
(000)		 TD HH TD Vwr
LW/LY

1

=

1

=

98891

2382

-22%

1176

0.8

-9%

=

=

85%

2382

-11%

1176

-7%

+2%

3

=

2

=

98861

603

-18%

329

0.2

+6%

=

=

85%

603

+30%

329

+7%

-2%

2

=

3

=

72464

951

+25%

283

0.2

+19%

=

=

63%

1298

+24%

386

+12%

+40%

6

-1

4

+1

79145

172

+12%

91

0.0

+10%

=

+4

68%

215

+93%

114

+2%

+63%

8

=

5

+2

82964

99

+5%

89

0.1

+18%

+1

+4

72%

118

+65%

106

-4%

+77%

4

=

6

-2

90121

236

+33%

85

0.0

-23%

+1

-2

78%

259

+46%

93

-30%

-17%

5

+1

7

+2

59950

179

+57%

76

0.0

+66%

-1

-2

52%

295

+4%

126

+104%

-13%

7

=

8

-2

75603

102

+4%

74

0.0

-8%

=

-2

65%

133

+16%

97

-23%

+14%

9

=

9

-1

75829

64

-25%

55

0.0

-10%

-1

-2

65%

83

+3%

72

-7%

-4%

10

=

10

=

71026

30

-29%

31

0.0

-32%

+1

+1

61%

42

+20%

43

-60%

+81%

I’m leaving Da Blog Poll up for another week and doing this for at least another two weeks so I can measure the impact on FS1 of the Oklahoma-Baylor game last week, which finally broke the FS1 record held by the launch-night UFC card and became the first FS1 program to crack the 2-million-viewer barrier. But be warned, the SSS the next two weeks could be pretty chaotic.

Earlier in the week Awful Announcing’s Joe Lucia used the same Son of the Bronx data I use to argue that, when compared to networks that aren’t ESPN, ESPN2, or NFL Network, FS1 is actually doing quite well. Unfortunately, he drew some flawed conclusions and ignored one undeniable fact in his data that shows how much FS1 really is struggling that doesn’t require a comparison to anyone but itself:

  • He claims that FS1 is doing well in total day because of UEFA Champions League soccer, which, while it does better than the normal timeslot occupants at 3 and 4 ET, is barely a blip on the radar compared to FS1’s other sports events. It’s far more likely that FS1’s strong total-day performance has more to do with college football and NASCAR practice and qualifying.
  • He claims that Crowd Goes Wild has consistently performed well compared to other daily afternoon and evening studio shows on FS1, NBCSN, and MLB Network, going toe to toe for the top spot with Intentional Talk among the shows he compares that aren’t NASCAR Race Hub… ignoring the fact that Crowd Goes Wild’s ratings are ridiculously, insanely inflated when it has NASCAR practice or qualifying as a lead-in.

Those two things, plus the dominance of Race Hub, point to one undeniable fact: a big chunk of FS1’s audience are still disproportionately holdovers from the Speed days, and at least at this point, fans of other sports have not yet found the channel. Yes, even UFC fans; they came out for launch night and have provided some of FS1’s most popular programming, and in fact Lucia also compared UFC Tonight to the daily shows and it wound up coming in second, but that launch night card wasn’t even the most-watched card on cable of 2013, and ratings for The Ultimate Fighter are way down compared to last season on FX. That Speed did well enough that the rest of the FS1 schedule is still comparable to NBCSN and MLBN doesn’t really hide that.

What can be said about FS1 compared to its competition?

  • FS1 is fairly consistently placing fourth in total day and primetime behind ESPN, ESPN2, and NFL Network… except this week when it fell to sixth in total day behind the Comcast networks.
  • Fox Soccer Daily is doing poorly compared to ESPNFC later in the day, which may sound like a bad comparison until you realize that ESPNFC is one of the worst-performing shows on ESPN2.
  • When insulated from NASCAR lead-ins, Crowd Goes Wild is running neck-in-neck with Pro Football Talk, but that may say more about the problems PFT and NBCSN in general are having. CGW could not compete with Intentional Talk during baseball season. Fox Football Daily, meanwhile, seems to lose substantially from its CGW lead-in, which means it’s substantially behind PFT and any other regularly scheduled show in its time slot.
  • First-run airings of Fox Sports Live generally don’t fall much below 30,000, which is roughly at CGW’s level, but Sundays can be very vulnerable, at least during football season. In general FSL is very lead-in-dependent, and its re-airs tend to be susceptible to random fluctuations; numbers can get truly pathetic for late-night and early-morning re-airs.
  • Fox College Saturday was consistently beating college football pre-game coverage on ESPNU… except for this week.
  • This week, without NASCAR RaceDay or other NASCAR coverage as a lead-in, Fox NFL Kickoff still attracted over 100,000 viewers. That put it behind other NFL pregame shows (including Fantasy Football Now, bumped to ESPNEWS for the New York City Marathon, NFL Gameday First earlier in the day, and the Saturday morning ESPN2 airing of NFL Matchup), but did beat re-airs of ESPN2 programming on ESPNEWS earlier and re-airs of NBA Gametime on NBATV. Of course, that’s sort of damning with faint praise, but it did manage to beat Morning Drive on Golf Channel earlier.

All numbers are in thousands of viewers and are from Son of the Bronx.

Read more

Sports Ratings Report for Week of October 21-27

by

Sports Ratings Highlights for Week of October 21-27

Numbers compiled from a variety of sources, including TV by the Numbers, The Futon Critic, Sports Media Watch, and Son of the Bronx.

 

Vwr (mil) 

HH 

18-49 

Net

NFL: Regional coverage
(main game: Redskins @ Broncos)

25.499 

15.3 

8.9 

FOX 

Sunday Night Football:
Packers @ Vikings

16.893 

  

6.3 

NBC 

World Series, Game 4:
Red Sox @ Cardinals

15.975 

  

4.6 

FOX 

NFL: Regional coverage 

15.5 

9.7 

  

FOX 

NFL: Regional coverage (or 4 PM ET)

15.2 

9.3 

  

CBS 

Monday Night Football:
Vikings @ Giants

14.383 

9.1 

4.9 

ESPN+
Locals

World Series, Game 1:
Cardinals @ Red Sox

14.4 

  

4.3 

FOX 

World Series, Game 2:
Cardinals @ Red Sox

13.429 

  

3.6 

FOX 

World Series, Game 3:
Red Sox @ Cardinals

12.473 

7.4 

3.3 

FOX 

Thursday Night Football:
Panthers @ Buccaneers

4.94 

3.1 

1.8 

NFLN+
Locals

NASCAR

4.316 

2.7 

1.0 

ESPN 

CFB: Penn State @ Ohio State 

4.059 

2.5 

1.1 

ABC 

CFB: Tennessee @ Alabama 

4.03 

2.6 

  

CBS 

CFB: Texas Tech @ Oklahoma (part 1) 

3.8 

2.4 

  

FOX 

CFB: UCLA @ Oregon 

3.674 

2.3 

1.2 

ESPN 

CFB: Michigan State @ Illinois
or NC State @ Florida State

3.3 

2.2 

  

ABC 

Read more

The Studio Show Scorecard for Week of October 21-27

by

PT Rnk

TD Rnk

 Oct Distr.
(000)		 PT Vwr
(000)		 LW/LY TD Vwr
(000)		 TD HH TD Vwr
LW/LY

1

=

1

=

98891

3055

+14%

1295

0.9

+6%

=

=

85%

3055

+14%

1295

+6%

+9%

3

=

2

=

98861

731

+15%

309

0.2

+4%

=

=

85%

731

+10%

309

+3%

+4%

2

=

3

=

72464

762

-17%

238

0.2

-13%

=

=

63%

1040

-6%

325

-12%

-6%

4

=

4

=

90121

177

-34%

111

0.1

-23%

=

=

78%

194

+33%

121

-20%

+3%

5

=

5

=

79145

154

-25%

83

0.0

+5%

+1

+3

68%

192

+40%

104

+22%

+85%

7

+2

6

+3

75603

98

+44%

81

0.0

+60%

n/a

n/a

65%

128

n/a

106

+132%

n/a

8

=

7

-1

82964

94

+25%

75

0.1

+28%

-1

-2

72%

112

-10%

90

+103%

+25%

9

-2

8

-1

75829

85

+6%

61

0.0

+6%

-1

-1

65%

111

+33%

80

+15%

+28%

6

=

9

-1

59950

114

-7%

46

0.0

-12%

-1

-3

52%

188

-3%

76

-16%

-8%

10

=

10

=

71026

42

+27%

45

0.0

+14%

-1

-1

61%

58

+56%

63

+13%

+34%

Okay, look, I’ll level with you. I thought I had found a way to not have this project monopolize all my time when I started it, but that clearly isn’t the case. These posts are really tedious, starting with scrolling through each week’s schedule and making note of any pre-emptions or modifications, continuing as I go through each individual show – something that seems like it goes by pretty breezily as I’m doing it (so long as I’m not doing a repeating nightly highlight show that’s not SportsCenter, especially if it’s leading out of a live sporting event… shudder) but where the sheer quantity of shows causes it to bog down, all for something of tangential importance at best to what I personally am really interested in, which is the ratings for the actual sporting events.

The week-by-week fluctuations in the shows aren’t very important, and any changes are going to occur slowly over a very long term, other than in-season fluctuations for the sport-specific networks, although I am interested in the short-term bump shows on smaller networks (especially Fox Sports 1) get from popular sporting events. The main reason I decided to do this is because I like the concept, but all my data comes from a single site that anyone can check for themselves (and they are), even if I give the same data in a more user-friendly format, and I’m not getting much of any sort of bump for these posts (not that I’m getting any for the main ratings posts either, but I’m playing a long game there). I’ll do next week’s post, but I have a new Da Blog Poll up asking if I should keep doing these.

All numbers are in thousands of viewers and are from Son of the Bronx.

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2013 MLB Ratings Wrap-Up, Part III: Postseason Games

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Here are the viewership numbers for every game of the MLB postseason, including 18-49 ratings for most games, sorted by viewership and including the tiebreaker game between the Rays and Rangers. Click here to see them sorted by series.

The Red Sox’ clincher in Game 6 of the World Series was the most-watched baseball game of the year, attracting over 19 million viewers. Unsurprisingly, especially with the Red Sox in the ALCS and World Series, every primetime game on Fox beat every game on TBS; in fact, the most watched game on TBS was a division series game, the Cardinals’ clincher in Game 5 against the Pirates. This also meant the Red Sox were involved in the 11 most-watched games of the postseason.

The most-watched game on TBS outside of primetime likely depends on definition; either Tigers-Athletics Game 4, which began at 5 PM ET, or Cardinals-Dodgers Game 5, which began at 4 PM ET. Both games had over 3.7 million viewers. The two games starting at 3 PM ET were the least-watched games on TBS; the Red Sox factor could not save Rays-Red Sox Game 1 from being the single least-viewed game on TBS. Depending on definition, the least-viewed primetime game was either Pirates-Cardinals Game 1 at 5 PM ET; the Rays-Rangers tiebreaker; or Tigers-Athletics Game 2.

28 games had more viewers than the most-watched regular season game window of the season. For perspective, a total of 36 or 37 games aired on Fox and TBS. If the Rays-Rangers tiebreaker is considered a regular season game, it was the second-most viewed of the season on cable; in all, 19 of 24 or 25 games on TBS attracted more viewers than any regular-season game on ESPN.

Of MLB Network’s two games, Athletics-Tigers Game 3 attracted a larger audience with 912,000 viewers. Pirates-Cardinals Game 2 lagged behind with 832,000 viewers.

All numbers from TVbytheNumbers, The Futon Critic, and Son of the Bronx with additional info from Sports Media Watch (see link above).

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2013 MLB Ratings Wrap-Up, Part II: MLB Network Regular Season Games

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Here are the viewership numbers for most if not all games on MLB Network for the 2013 season.

Seven of the top eight, nine of the top eleven, twelve of the top sixteen, and fourteen of the twenty most-watched games on MLB Network involved either the Red Sox or Yankees, with the top game being an “MLB Network Showcase” game between the teams at Fenway Park September 13 that attracted 450,000 viewers. Games between the Red Sox and Yankees also finished fifth, seventh, eighth, tenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth. The Yankees also produced the most-watched “matinee” game, when they hosted the Twins July 13 and attracted 408,000 viewers. The most-watched American League game not to involve either team was the Orioles at the White Sox on the Fourth of July, which attracted 319,000 viewers, only enough for 22nd among all MLB Network games.

The National League was not much better balanced. The five most-watched NL games involved either the Cardinals or Braves, including two games between the teams; in fact, the most-watched NL game not to involve either team, the Giants-Reds “Showcase” game July 2, didn’t do much better than Orioles-White Sox at 320,000 viewers. A Cubs-Braves game on April 5 was the most-watched game not to involve the Yankees with 433,000 viewers. The Mets were able to attract audiences when they were playing the Yankees; of the four games involving the Yankees and Red Sox in the top eleven that weren’t against one another, two were part of the Subway Series, including a game at Citi Field on May 27 that placed second overall (and was the most-watched non-“Showcase” game) with 444,000 viewers.

However, having one of the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, or Braves was no guarantee of getting a big audience, especially for an afternoon game. The least-watched game in my records was between the Royals and Braves on April 17, a game only 80,000 people watched. The least-watched primetime game was Nationals-Cardinals September 23, with 115,000 viewers, which actually edged out a Rangers-Yankees afternoon game, and the least-watched “Showcase” game was the Civil Rights Game between the Rangers and White Sox that attracted 173,000 viewers August 24, followed by Cardinals-Reds June 7 with 215,000 viewers.

All numbers from Son of the Bronx.

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The Problem With Internet Companies Getting Major Sports Rights

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I have a much longer series of posts planned on the broader issues surrounding the current era of sports on television, but I wanted to make this particular point because I think it’s particularly important.

The NFL is reportedly still considering an expansion and splitting of its Thursday night package to sell to another partner, and is reportedly interested in potentially selling games to a tech company like Google or Netflix. This comes as the NBA, still in the process of negotiating its next TV package, has been speculated to potentially also sell games to a tech company. And that comes amidst years of speculation that tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, or Netflix, could be the best candidates to challenge ESPN and completely upend the sports TV wars.

But I’m still unconvinced that Internet companies are really the threat they’re made out to be. In my opinion, the speculation surrounding them is mostly superficial and based on only a few factors, without seriously considering the circumstances and what their entry into the market would actually mean, and I don’t believe they’re a realistic candidate to score sports rights, or that if they are that it would turn out to be a good idea, or that if it does that they would really be as revolutionary as they’re cracked up to be.

For one thing, I’m having a hard time seeing exactly how tech companies would distribute games and make money off them. I can’t imagine Google would simply slap games on YouTube, as that would mean they would need to collect money through advertising alone, when the great advantage of sports networks like ESPN is their dual revenue stream of advertising and subscriber fees. That means tech companies would need to restrict access to the games in some way, and most of the options don’t sound very promising. Would Apple restrict games to users of iOS devices and Apple TV, or Google restrict them to users of Android devices and Google TV? That seems like it would have the potential for disaster as people would be shut out for choosing the wrong product, especially if we’re talking about being the equivalent of a national television partner as opposed to getting a piece of the out-of-market package. A company like Netflix could distribute games to its subscribers, but that would be the equivalent of a premium channel at best. The best-case scenario probably involves Facebook or Google effectively blackmailing people into signing up for their services in order to view the games, but even then I’m not seeing how that would help them raise enough money to be competitive with sports networks.

And none of these approaches would avoid the other issues, certainly not the issue of being a middleman. The nature of TV is such that sports benefit from distributing their games through middlemen, which is why none of the sports leagues that own their own networks have abandoned their relationships with other partners; from its humble beginnings as the Outdoor Life Network, the entity now known as the NBC Sports Network has acquired more and more properties to obtain more distribution than any sport-specific network other than Golf Channel and, until this past August, Speed – and those two had a multiple-year head start on gaining distribution before the full effect of the sports TV wars set in. In theory at least, fans of any of its properties can drop in on coverage of any other property, thus broadening the exposure to that property. But the open nature of the Internet already provides exposure to anyone who wants to drop in, so I’m not sure what sports leagues would gain from selling games to Google when they could cut out the middleman and distribute games themselves. In this sense, Major League Baseball has already entered this territory; its MLB.tv service regularly offers one game for free each day to non-customers.

But none of that begins to approach the most fundamental issue, the basic distinction between the Internet and television, which I laid out before: the Internet is good at distributing many programs to a few people, but television is good at distributing a few programs to many people. The Internet effectively consists of one “channel” for each of its customers, meaning you have a channel that you can program yourself, allowing you to watch whatever you want whenever you want. But if many people want to watch the same thing all at once, i.e., some sort of live event (i.e., a live sporting event), they all have to watch it on their own individual “channels” – the server has to serve the event to each individual computer that asks for it. We saw the result with the massive issues NBC had with streaming of events at the London 2012 Olympics, and those didn’t reach more than a million or so people at a time. Things haven’t improved that much since then:

Perhaps the issues surrounding large-scale Internet streaming can be fixed with bigger pipes and more investment in servers and the like, but this structural issue will remain: why distribute the same event many times to each individual customer if you could find a way to distribute the event once and allow anyone, at least with the proper credentials, to hop on the stream with no additional strain on your end? On this front, it’s instructive to see how the mobile world, which (at least at the moment) already lives in the world where all television is over the Internet, is dealing with this issue, and it’s clear that they at least recognize it: AT&T has begun work on a network that will precisely allow them to push video out to many different devices at once. One thing strikes me about this project: it is a completely separate service that requires use of completely separate spectrum from AT&T’s normal 3G/4G network (indeed, spectrum that had most recently been used for a similar service). In other words, once you begin broadcasting the same signal for any device to hop on to, it is no longer the Internet, at least not as we know it. In this particular case, it becomes something fundamentally not that different from over-the-air broadcast television – indeed the spectrum in question may well have once been TV spectrum.

Once the distinction between and relative strengths of TV and the Internet are recognized, it’s clear that at least on a large scale, showing a single live event for everyone to view at once is something the Internet simply is not suited for. The great advantages of the Internet for viewing video are the ability to view it anywhere you want and to watch whatever you want whenever you want, but only the former applies to live events like sports, and even that goes away if the technology is developed to deliver content to many devices at once. Broadcast television is already halfway there, but is currently only reaching mobile devices through optional kludges attached to the existing broadcast standard, rather than having one standard suited to reaching all devices whether stationary or on the go. If the television industry recognizes its place in a future where Internet distribution of video reaches maturity – a place where its purpose becomes refocused specifically on the broadcasting of live events – adopts a standard that maximizes its investment in its existing infrastructure and reorganizes its business accordingly, it can survive and effectively compete in that future for years to come, even if that future is substantially different from what exists now.