Last night's Game One of the Mets-Braves NLCS earned an
overnight Nielsen rating of a 11.8/19 on NBC, up 15% from
'98's Indians-Yankees ALCS Game One on NBC. The game earned
a 34.1/47 in Atlanta and a 24.3/35 in N.Y. (THE DAILY). USA
TODAY's Rudy Martzke gives NBC's telecast a B+ and writes
that the net "showed it was ... ready for the" LCS, as Bob
Costas and Joe Morgan "demonstrated the team work missing
last year," and the net "scored with numerous replays" (USA
TODAY, 10/13). NEWSDAY's Steve Zipay writes under the
header, "A Quality Start To NBC Coverage" (NEWSDAY, 10/13).
DISSECTING MANIC MONDAY NIGHT: Final national ratings
show that Monday night's Jaguars-Jets game on ABC generated
a 10.4 rating, while the Red Sox-Indians ALDS Game Five
earned a 9.0 (THE DAILY). In Boston, Game Five peaked with
a 39.0/68 rating around 11:00pm ET, while "MNF" earned a
2.6/4 (BOSTON GLOBE, 10/13). After Cleveland and Boston,
Providence was the third top-rated market for Game Five with
a 23.1, Hartford at 21.3 and N.Y. with a 15.8 (BOSTON
HERALD, 10/13). USA TODAY's Rudy Martzke reports that the
9.0 "lifted the Fox/NBC overall divisional playoffs average
to 6.9, 5% below last year's 7.3" (USA TODAY, 10/13). DAILY
VARIETY's Tom Bierbaum reports that the 9.0 rating "saved
the first round of the playoffs from lowest-ever primetime
Nielsens and has given the upcoming league championship
rounds of the playoffs a pair of dream matchups." Red Sox-
Indians earned a 4.9/13 among adults 18-49, while Jags-Jets
drew a 6.5/17 among the same group. It was the second-
lowest "MNF" rating ever, "beating only" an '86 game which
went up against Game Seven of the Red Sox-Mets (DAILY
VARIETY, 10/13). In N.Y., Richard Sandomir reports that
during Monday's competitive sports TV schedule, the N.Y.
market "opted for baseball over our very own Jets," as the
Red Sox-Indians earned a 15.8, and Jags-Jets earned a 9.6.
Sandomir: "Baseball outrated football in half of the
country's top 10 markets." Looking at both series, NBC
Sports Chair Dick Ebersol said, "I don't think you could
have better League Championship Series matchups than the
ones we have." But Sandomir adds that "despite the one-
market frenzy of a Subway Series, a New York-New York
matchup is not NBC's greatest wish. Having one team in a
market is often enough ... and having a strong geographic
counterbalance is helpful" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/13). A
WASHINGTON POST editorial states that while there were
"many" who thought MLB's implementation of the Wild Card was
"a bad thing," this year, "the second-place teams are
stealing the show" (WASHINGTON POST, 10/13).
