NCAA Football Seeing Audience Gains; CBS Leads With 6.3M Viewers

CBS is leading all networks airing NCAA football telecasts, averaging a 4.0 rating and 6.347 million viewers through nine telecasts. That marks a steep jump from the same point last season, when the net was averaging a 2.8 rating and 4.317 million viewers. ABC is relatively flat with the same position last year for its combo of afternoon and primetime telecasts. NBC's five Notre Dame football telecasts to date are up double-digits through the same point last season. On cable, ESPN and ESPN2 are both up double digits from a year ago. ESPN's Thursday night telecasts (11 games) are averaging 3.320 million viewers, while the net's Saturday primetime games are averaging 4.272 million viewers (11 games). Meanwhile, Versus, despite the loss of carriage on DirecTV, also continues to see viewership gains with growth on Pac-10 and Big 12 game telecasts. Below is average viewership for NCAA football telecasts to date, with comparisons to the same period a year ago. Figures for games on FSN this season were unavailable at presstime (THE DAILY).

TOP GAMES: ESPN's USC-Ohio State telecast on September 12 ranks as college football's most-viewed telecast this season to date with 10.6 million viewers, just ahead of CBS' Florida-LSU telecast on October 10.

GET YOUR PREGAME ON: ESPN's "College GameDay" is also seeing gains this season to date, up almost 18% from the same period a year ago. The telecast from the Cotton Bowl prior to the Texas-Oklahoma game on October 17 drew 2.3 million viewers, tops for all "GameDay" broadcasts this season.