ESPN earned a 9.7 overnight rating for the Saints' 38-17 win over the Dolphins on “MNF” last night, down 16% from an 11.6 overnight for Bears-Cowboys in Week 4 last year. Dolphins-Saints is also up 21% from a 8.0 for Colts-Buccaneers in ’11 and down 6% from a 10.3 for Patriots-Dolphins in ’10. In Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, the game earned a 13.1 local rating on ESPN and a 4.0 rating on WSFL-CW. In New Orleans, the game earned a 21.7 rating on ESPN and a 39.3 rating on WDSU-NBC. Rounding out the top five markets were West Palm Beach, Sacramento and San Diego (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
PREENING PEACOCK: In N.Y., Claire Atkinson writes NBC's primetime ratings for the first week of the fall season are giving NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke "some much-needed ammo when it comes to closing the network's profitability gap with rivals." The net, "buoyed by strong openings by the NFL, 'The Voice,' and a handful of new shows such as 'The Blacklist,'" saw primetime ratings grow 41% "in the first four days of the season." However, critics "would say that NBC has started out hot in the past, only to fall flat." For example, NBC "won the first 13 weeks of last season, but then flopped midseason as its shows collapsed without the aide of NFL games and 'The Voice.'" Horizon Media Research Dir Brad Adgate said of the net broadcasting the '14 Sochi Games in February: "I do think the Olympics will give them a huge boost. I think they’ll finish second to CBS this season. Sports is one huge advantage they have over ABC" (N.Y. POST, 10/1).
LOST SIGNAL: DirecTV yesterday said that it had "resolved a technical glitch which saw subscribers in several major markets lose access to local broadcast TV channels, including customers in New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Alabama, Illinois and Maine" on Sunday afternoon. DirecTV PR Dir Robert Mercer said that the outage "lasted for 50 minutes, and that it impacted its local channel lineup in about 40 markets." FIERCECABLE.com's Steve Donohue reported the outage "left thousands of DirecTV subscribers unable to watch NFL games on local CBS and Fox stations" (FIERCECABLE.com, 9/30).
