With the Chargers joining the Rams in L.A. next season, fans there “will be inundated” by those teams' telecasts “unless some kind of compromise is reached,” according to Dan Caesar of the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. Because NFL rules “require that all teams’ games be shown in their home market,” L.A. went from “having the ‘best game available’ on Sundays for more than two decades to being force-fed the Rams this season." The city now is "in line to have the Chargers vastly increase their presence on television there.” The Chargers previously had “designated L.A. as a secondary market,” meaning that their road games were shown there. But L.A. now “sets up for a full dose of Rams and Chargers on TV,” and the numbers for those teams there “were ugly this season.” The Rams “made 12 appearances” on KTTV-Fox and averaged an 8.3 local rating in L.A. Nine Chargers games were shown on KCBS and “averaged a 6.6 rating.” Neither rivaled the 10 Raiders games that were show in L.A., which “averaged a 9.0 rating” (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 1/13). In L.A., Sam Farmer notes fans in L.A. will "get Rams and Chargers games every Sunday, and judging by recent history, that’s going to leave a lot of people unhappy." The "real beneficiary could be DirecTV, because more NFL fans are going to sign up for 'Sunday Ticket' so they won’t miss the best" games (L.A. TIMES, 1/13).
MORE THAN A BLIP ON THE RADAR? In Boston, Chad Finn notes the NFL’s ratings this season have been “excellent numbers by virtually all other television viewership and ratings standards, but extremely alarming based on what they were just three years ago and the southbound direction in which they are trending.” Even with the "small second-half comeback this year, viewership across the four major broadcast outlets (NBC, CBS, Fox, ESPN) dropped 10 percent in that adults 18-49 demographic.” More and more it “looks as though the average viewership” during the ’13 season will “stand as the pinnacle of NFL popularity” on TV. NFL ratings are “trending downward.” The ’16 Presidential election “exacerbated that, and there’s little that suggests anything will change” in ’17 (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/13).
