21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch said that NFL ratings "have declined over the past two years because of the 'overproliferation' of games, particularly as the league expanded" into Thursday nights, according to Jason Lynch of ADWEEK. Murdoch, speaking today at the Paley Center for Media Int’l Council Summit in N.Y., said, "There’s a question mark for the NFL, which is just to think hard about how they’re licensing. So I do think the proliferation of Thursday availability -- and the proliferation of football generally -- does mean that you’re asking a lot from customers to watch Thursday. And then they watch a lot more college football game on Saturdays, and then on Sundays, and then on Monday Night Football, etc. It’s a lot. So I do think that preserving the scarcity value of those events and that audience is something that is worth thinking about” (ADWEEK.com, 10/25). NFL Exec VP/Communications Joe Lockhart disagreed with Murdoch’s claim and suggested he made it because his net does not have "TNF." Lockhart said, "That may be one of the reasons why he pointed to Thursday night.” CBS, NBC, NFL Net and Amazon Prime broadcast "TNF," which has long come under criticism for creating too much football content. Lockhart emphasized the top 10 programs on broadcast TV right now are NFL games, and the rate of primetime network TV show declines far outpace the declines of the NFL. “We are not oversaturated, though we will always look at that,” he said. Lockhart added there might be extra bidders for "TNF" when the package is available after this season (Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer).
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING? In this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, John Ourand reports one reason "increasingly being discussed in media circles" for the continued downturn in NFL ratings is "oversaturation, a topic that has irked network executives since the league launched NFL Network" in '03. Fans this season "have been able to watch games on Thursday nights, Sunday mornings, Sunday afternoons, Sunday nights and Monday nights," with Saturday games being played later this year. The NFL had 39 game windows through the first six weeks of the season, a 22% jump from 32 windows 10 years ago. Network execs believe there are a "couple of easy answers" to eliminate the oversaturation concern. Some media execs and sponsors "informally have lobbied the NFL to move back to an eight-game, NFL Network only package" for "TNF" that would "return 10 games to the Sunday afternoon package." Additionally, network execs "want to kill the four early morning games from London, time slots that may work well in Britain but do not bring big ratings to the U.S. networks" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 10/23 issue).
