"Friday Night Fights" on ESPN2 Tracking 3.3% Viewership Gain In '09
By Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor
"Friday Night Fights" (FNF) on ESPN2 is averaging 563,000 viewers through 18 telecasts to date in '09, up 3.3% from 545,000 viewers through the same period last year (20 telecasts). This year's most-viewed telecast to date was the April 10 event, which earned 779,000 viewers and was headlined by the David Lopez-Ossie Duran Junior Middleweight bout. The telecast was preceded by Knicks-Magic, which was the only regular-season NBA game on ESPN2 during the entire '08-09 season. Additionally, among viewers in the Hispanic demographic, which ranks boxing as the second-most-popular sport, "FNF" is averaging 61,140 viewers to date, which is tracking up from the 41,467 Hispanic viewers the series averaged for all of '08. Historically, the most-viewed "FNF" season was '06 with just over 600,000 average viewers, while '02-07 averaged between 450,000-550,000 viewers per season. The '08 season finished near 435,000 average viewers. Below is viewership for each "FNF" telecast to date in '09.
|
DATE
|
TIME
|
VIEWERS (000)
|
|
1/9
|
9:00-11:07pm
|
568
|
|
1/16
|
9:00-11:17pm
|
554
|
|
1/30
|
8:30-11:21pm
|
625
|
|
2/6
|
9:00-11:22pm
|
599
|
|
2/13
|
9:00-11:03pm
|
619
|
|
2/20
|
9:10-11:13pm
|
623
|
|
2/27
|
9:00-11:15pm
|
613
|
|
3/6
|
8:38-10:36pm
|
570
|
|
3/20
|
9:59pm-12:06am
|
503
|
|
3/27
|
9:53pm-12:00am
|
626
|
|
4/3
|
9:00-11:00pm
|
485
|
|
4/10
|
10:35pm-12:45am
|
779
|
|
4/24
|
10:50pm-12:51am
|
522
|
|
5/8
|
10:00pm-12:12am
|
571
|
|
5/15
|
9:00-11:06pm
|
542
|
|
5/22
|
8:50-11:00pm
|
370
|
|
6/5
|
8:30-10:30pm
|
459
|
|
6/12
|
10:00pm-12:00am
|
461
|
NOTE: Numbers for last week's telecast from Frisco, Texas, are excluded, as the event was shown tape-delayed from 1:30-4:00am ET after the Texas-Arizona State College World Series game went into extra innings, which was followed by a special "SportsCenter" from the U.S. Open.
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