Fox earned a 5.9 overnight Nielsen rating for last night’s Rangers-Tigers ALCS Game Three, marking the best LCS rating so far this postseason. Last year’s Giants-Phillies NLCS Game Three on Fox aired in the afternoon window, earning a 3.8 overnight. Last night’s game earned a 29.3 rating in Detroit, which is the market’s best local rating for the ’11 MLB postseason to date. Dallas-Ft. Worth earned a 23.9 local rating, also tops for the market this postseason (Austin Karp, THE DAILY).
LONG DIVISION: TBS was the most-viewed cable network primetime for the week ending Oct. 9, marking the net’s first weekly primetime in this year. MLB LDS telecasts accounted for seven of the top 10 most-viewed programs for the week. TBS was also tops in primetime on cable for the week among all adults 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, as well as males 18-34 and 18-49 (THE DAILY). MULTICHANNEL NEWS’ R. Thomas Umstead noted that TBS was also tops for weekly cable TV total-day audience “for the first time this year” and topped “Nickelodeon -- which finished second -- for the first time since the week of Oct. 5, 2009” (MULTICHANNEL.com, 10/11).
INSIDE THE BROADCAST BOOTH: In Ft. Worth, Mac Engel wrote he has watched the replay of Rangers RF Nelson Cruz' walkoff grand slam during Game Two of the ALCS "about 20 times, and one of the reasons it is so compelling is the call of play-by-play man Joe Buck." Engel: "This is a man who clearly grasps the medium. ... Buck's last word comes at the eight-second mark of this clip. He does not speak again until the 1:17 mark. His silence allowed the images to speak for themselves." The clip is "what makes Buck the very best TV play-by-play man in the business today -- nobody grasps the visual element of his position any better. ... There is nobody any better at what he does" (
STAR-TELEGRAM.com, 10/11). Meanwhile, USA TODAY's Michael Hiestand writes Fox' "experiment" with having former Red Sox manager Terry Francona serve as an analyst for the first two ALCS games "proves what should be obvious: Networks should take more chances." Francona is "familiar with the AL playoff teams," and he exhibited "in his many Fox in-game dugout interviews, he can talk about baseball while miked." Hiestand: "Taking chances on people who don't sound like they've had news media training ... can bring edge to live big-event TV, which too often is predictable" (
USA TODAY, 10/12).
SHOW ME THE PLAY: In Milwaukee, Bob Wolfley wrote one advantage fans have watching an MLB game on TV instead of at the ballpark "is frequency of replays, including close plays and plays that may show an umpire missed a call." Brewers 2B Rickie Weeks in the fifth inning of NLCS Game Two "grounded ruled a double play." Fans "watching the game on TBS had the benefit of several replays after the fact, some in super slow motion, which showed that Weeks had beaten [Cardinals 2B] Nick Punto’s throw to [Cardinals 1B] Albert Pujols at first base," but the Miller Park scoreboard "did not show those moments in replay." Wolfley: "It's clear that MLB does not want stadium scoreboards showing plays where an umpire may have missed a call" (JSONLINE.com, 10/11).
