ABC’s “Saturday Night Football” package, coming off a 5% drop last season, is averaging a 3.8 rating and 6.2 million viewers to date, up 6% in both metrics after four weeks. ABC’s entire slate of college football games has averaged a 2.9 rating and 4.6 million viewers, up 4% and 6%, respectively. ESPN’s Saturday primetime games are averaging a 2.5 rating and 4.2 million viewers, up 32% and 39%, respectively. Last season, the ESPN Saturday primetime package audience was flat compared to ’11. ESPN’s Thursday night college games, which continue to compete with NFL Network’s package of games, are averaging a 2.8 rating and 2.8 million viewers, up 13% and 16%, respectively. Overall, ESPN’s slate of college games is averaging a 2.1 rating and 2.8 million viewers, up 17% and 18%. Meanwhile, FS1’s college football game audience is down from same period on FX last season. FS1 is averaging a 0.3 rating and 398,000 viewers for 15 games (includes Saturday, Thursday), down from a 0.4 rating and 611,000 viewers on FX last year through the same period (eight games, all Saturday) (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
AND NOW YOUR LOCAL NEWS: WJZY-Fox earned a 21.7 local rating in the Charlotte market for the Panthers’ 38-0 win over the Giants last Sunday, marking the “most-watched program of any kind in the area for the week and … the largest audience for the team through the first three weeks" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 9/24)….WFXT-Fox drew a 30.8 local rating in Boston for the Buccaneers-Patriots, marking the second-best Week 3 audience ever for the team. The top Week 3 audience in the market still belongs to NBC’s Patriots-Ravens “SNF” matchup from last season (Patriots).
The charts below list final Nielsen ratings from recent sports telecasts. Figures for select CBS programming was unavailable at presstime.
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RAT.
|
VIEWERS (000)
|
| "NFL on CBS": Colts-49ers (81%) |
9/22
|
CBS
|
4:15-7:30pm
|
15.4
|
25,600
|
| "NFL on Fox": (single) |
9/22
|
Fox
|
1:00-4:05pm
|
12.5
|
20,900
|
| "Sunday Night Football": Bears-Steelers |
9/22
|
NBC
|
8:31-11:28pm
|
12.2
|
20,510
|
| "NFL on CBS": (regional) |
9/22
|
CBS
|
1:00-4:15pm
|
6.1
|
n/a
|
| "Football Night in America" |
9/22
|
NBC
|
7:30-8:15pm
|
4.1
|
6,556
|
| College Football: (regional) |
9/21
|
ABC
|
8:10-11:43pm
|
3.5
|
5,727
|
| College Football: Michigan State-Notre Dame |
9/21
|
NBC
|
3:31-7:14pm
|
3.2
|
4,785
|
| "Fox NFL Sunday" |
9/22
|
Fox
|
12:00-1:00pm
|
3.1
|
4,700
|
| College Football: Tennessee-Florida |
9/21
|
CBS
|
3:30-6:00pm
|
2.8
|
n/a
|
| College Football: (regional) |
9/21
|
ABC
|
3:30-7:00pm
|
1.9
|
2,779
|
| PGA Tour: The Tour Championship: Final Round |
9/22
|
NBC
|
1:00-6:04pm
|
1.4
|
1,997
|
| College Football: Arizona State-Stanford |
9/21
|
Fox
|
7:05-10:35pm
|
1.2
|
1,885
|
| PGA Tour: The Tour Championship: Third Round* |
9/21
|
NBC
|
12:00-3:30pm
|
1.2
|
1,558
|
| MLB: (regional) |
9/21
|
Fox
|
1:00-4:00pm
|
1.0
|
1,400
|
| "College Football Countdown" |
9/21
|
ABC
|
3:00-3:30pm
|
0.9
|
1,249
|
| Liga MX: Club America-Chiapas |
9/21
|
Univ.
|
5:50-8:00pm
|
0.6
|
1,076
|
| Liga MX: Leon-Chivas de Guadalajara |
9/21
|
Telem.
|
9:00-11:04pm
|
0.3
|
598
|
| "President's Cup Special" |
9/22
|
NBC
|
12:30-1:00pm
|
0.3
|
440
|
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RAT.
|
VIEWERS (000)
|
| "Monday Night Football": Steelers-Bengals |
9/16
|
ESPN
|
8:27-11:51pm
|
9.1
|
14,329
|
| "Thursday Night Football": Chiefs-Eagles |
9/19
|
NFLN
|
8:30-11:43pm
|
6.0
|
9,374
|
| "Thursday Night Football Pre-Kick" |
9/19
|
NFLN
|
8:00-8:30pm
|
2.5
|
3,822
|
| College Football: Auburn-LSU |
9/21
|
ESPN
|
7:40-11:31pm
|
2.2
|
3,799
|
| NASCAR Sprint Cup: New Hampshire |
9/22
|
ESPN
|
2:00-5:30pm
|
2.4
|
3,706
|
| College Football: Colorado State-Alabama |
9/21
|
ESPN2
|
7:05-10:12pm
|
1.6
|
2,779
|
| "Monday Night Countdown" |
9/16
|
ESPN
|
6:30-8:27pm
|
1.8
|
2,728
|
| College Football: Clemson-NC State |
9/19
|
ESPN
|
7:25-10:55pm
|
1.7
|
2,599
|
| College Football: North Carolina-Georgia Tech |
9/21
|
ESPN
|
12:00-3:19pm
|
1.7
|
2,333
|
| "Sunday NFL Countdown" |
9/22
|
ESPN
|
10:00am-1:00pm
|
1.6
|
2,235
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
NOTE: * = Due to weather and the PGA Tour moving up tee times, entire broadcast was on tape delay.
