The annual Dodgers-Angels interleague series is earning big numbers on FS West in the L.A. market. The RSN drew a 4.6 local rating for Tuesday night’s game, marking the net’s best figure for an Angels game this season and second best on record. The top spot belongs to a Freeway Series matchup on June 22, 1998, which earned a 5.28 rating. FS West’s figure on Tuesday night topped the season’s best rating set for Monday’s series opener, which drew a 4.03 local rating. By comparison, SportsNet LA, which carries Dodgers games and is not fully distributed in the market, earned a 1.35 local rating for Tuesday’s game and a 1.01 on Monday (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). In L.A., Bill Dwyre writes people in the city have watched Angels games this season “who never bothered with the team Orange County” in the past. FS West VP & GM Steve Simpson said, "We are just glad we bring the games to Southern California baseball fans.” Simpson said that the FS West Angels telecasts this season are “especially finding traction” among adults 18-34. Simpson: “The momentum is growing” (L.A. TIMES, 8/7).
STRIPES ARE SOLID: MLB Network averaged 575,000 viewers for the extra-inning Tigers-Yankees matchup on Tuesday night, marking the net’s best regular-season audience since Yankees-Red Sox on October 2, 2012. The game ranks as MLB Net’s third-best regular-season audience on record. The game also earned a 4.83 local rating in N.Y. on YES Network, marking the RSN’s second-best Yankees game this season. The high remains the April 4 matchup against the Blue Jays with a 4.85 local rating -- a game that featured the debut of Yankees P Masahiro Tanaka (Karp).
POWER PLAY: In Boston, Dan Shaughnessy wrote networks apparently “don’t know that the Red Sox stink,” as the last-place Sox are to play the Cardinals tonight, and the game “is to be featured on the MLB Network.” That would “mean five of the last six Sox games had been nationally televised.” Maybe this is because Red Sox Chair Tom Werner “is a powerful TV guy and suddenly finds himself on the short list to succeed Bud Selig as baseball commissioner” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/7).
