Fox Earns 11.7/18 Nielsen For Red Sox' ALCS Game Seven Triumph

Fox Earns 11.7/18 Fast National Rating For ALCS Game Seven

Fox earned an 11.7/18 fast national Nielsen rating and drew 19 million viewers for Indians-Red Sox ALCS Game Seven Sunday night, respective increases of 8% and 15% over the marks for Cardinals-Mets NLCS Game Seven in ’06, which aired on a Thursday. Indians-Red Sox Game Six on Saturday drew a 6.6/12 and 10.9 million viewers, a 17% increase over the average of six Saturday-night LCS games going back to ’01. The net is projected to win the ratings week in both HHs and the adults 18-49 demo, which would be the first time since ’04 Fox has won a fall week in the demo. The net ranked first among adults 18-49 in five of the seven ALCS nights (Fox). DAILY VARIETY’s Kissell & Dempsey report Indians-Red Sox Game Seven was the most-watched program Sunday night, beating ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and NBC’s Steelers-Broncos “Sunday Night Football.” While “Housewives” earned a 7.2/16 among adults 18-49,  besting a 6.7/16 for Indians-Red Sox, the show drew just 17.9 million viewers. “SNF” came in third with 13.3 million viewers. For the entire ALCS, Fox averaged 11.6 million viewers, a 49% increase over the 7.8 million for the four-game Tigers-A’s ALCS in ’06 (DAILY VARIETY, 10/23). “Housewives” on ABC “handily” won the 9:00-10:00pm hour over Indians-Red Sox, the only program to do so (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 10/23). Fox Sports President Ed Goren said of not airing the NLCS and divisional series, "The fact that our prime-time lineup has become as dominant as it has was reason enough to cut back on the amount of baseball that we needed in the fall. Right now this is the perfect scenario for everyone. We win the week with baseball. Prime time gets to launch all of their shows. And on the back end of baseball, they come back stronger than ever" (THE DAILY).

Fox Hoping Red Sox Nation Helps Drive World Series Ratings

ALCS SAVED POSTSEASON: USA TODAY’s Hal Bodley writes that after four games, the ALCS “was bombing,” but by the start of Game Seven, casual fans “had rediscovered baseball.” The playoffs were about to be “the most forgettable postseason during Commissioner Bud Selig’s tenure,” as he “practiced damage control by looking ahead to the World Series” before the Red Sox came back from a 3-1 ALCS deficit (USA TODAY, 10/23). In Chicago, Carol Slezak writes for every “clunker series” this postseason, there was “another that held our interest.” Slezak: “The ALCS more than made up for the uninteresting NLCS, and people had no trouble" watching Games Six and Seven of Indians-Red Sox on Fox (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 10/23).  The N.Y. Daily News' Bob Raissman said Fox breathing a “sigh of relief is an understatement” with the Red Sox winning the ALCS. Raissman: “The Red Sox are one of the few teams in baseball that have a national following, so their chances of getting good ratings are fine. But the big thing is any of these series is getting length and in this case, they have time to sell it.” But Sirius Satellite Radio's Scott Pharrell: “They’re going to have lousy ratings for this World Series because the Rockies aren’t going to draw flies.” Raissman: “The Red Sox will make up for it” (“Daily News Live,” SNY, 10/22).

EARLY START: The NFL will move up the kickoff of next Monday’s Packers-Broncos game to 8:00pm ET if there is a Red Sox-Rockies World Series Game Five the same night.  ESPN's "MNF" telecasts typically begin at 8:30pm, with kickoff ten minutes later. No World Series start time has been announced (USA TODAY, 10/23). 

WAIT & SEE: NESN’s Don Orsillo, who called the Rockies-Phillies NLDS series on TBS, said the net “didn’t want a Red Sox announcer doing a Yankees series. They thought Yankee fans would not like that.  It was the same with Cleveland or Anaheim fans. At the national level, they fear any perception of possible bias.” Syndicated columnist John Molori writes Orsillo and Dick Stockton were “the absolute best of a so-so lot of announcers and analysts on TBS.” Orsillo said of working for TBS, “I don’t know if I’ll be doing any games beyond this season, but I hope to talk to them later this year” (MEDIA BLITZ, 10/22 issue).

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