RATINGS: USA TODAY's Rudy Martzke reports that the
WNBA's falling ratings -- down 36% on NBC and ESPN --
"haven't dimmed expectations" for TV execs. NBC is
averaging a 1.8 rating, while ESPN is drawing a 0.7.
Lifetime's ratings have stayed even at 0.5, but the net's
WNBA games get "one-third the audience" of the movies they
replace on Friday nights. NBC Sports Chair Dick Ebersol:
"We're in the WNBA for the long haul" (USA TODAY, 7/15).
....NBC's MLB All-Star Game telecast, which earned a 13.3/25
rating, "powered" the net "back into first place" in the
primetime Nielsen race, "snapping CBS' two-week streak in
the catbird seat" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 7/15)....TSN's CFL
ratings have "increased significantly" from '97. The net is
averaging about 200,000 viewers a game, up from an average
of about 180,000 last year (GLOBE & MAIL, 7/15).
NOTES: In D.C., Leonard Shapiro writes that "[w]hile
hardly criminally deficient," ABC's World Cup Final coverage
"was guilty of several serious misdemeanors, the most
egregious being its reluctance to go back to the basics for
one of the largest American soccer audiences it might ever
draw." Shapiro adds that ABC "also blew it by not having a
sideline reporter" (WASHINGTON POST, 7/15)....CNBC's Jerry
Cobb looked at Disney's decision not to launch ESPN West on
"Market Wrap." Cobb said that cable operators "balked" at
adding it to their systems, and were "in no mood to consider
carrying another channel of ESPN" while the net is asking
them for a 20% rate hike to help pay for its NFL TV
contract. Lehman Brothers' Larry Petralla said the hike
"had actually put the local cable guys in the wrong frame of
mind, frankly. And so just getting carriage for this
channel was not looking positive for Disney" (CNBC, 7/14).
