ABC, FS1, CBS Seeing Gains For College Football, But Fox, ESPN's "GameDay" Lower

College football seems to be a mixed bag for broadcasters to date. ABC’s games (31 telecasts) are averaging 5.0 million viewers to date, up 10% from 4.6 million viewers through Week 10 last year (29 telecasts). Notre Dame-Texas on Labor Day weekend was a big help, as ABC’s first-ever Sunday primetime CFB game drew a ’16 season high of 10.9 million viewers. Excluding that Sunday night game, ABC’s “Saturday Night Football” package is averaging 6.16 million viewers to date, up 12% from 5.51 million viewers through Week 10 last year. However, it is not all sunny news for the Worldwide Leader. ESPN’s “College GameDay” is averaging 1.8 million viewers, down 6% from 1.9 million viewers last year. Meanwhile, FS1 and Fox’ combined average for CFB games to date is 1.21 million viewers, up 7% from the same point across the two networks last year (1.13 million). Games on the Fox broadcast channel are averaging 2.05 million viewers, down 10% from last year’s 2.3 million. FS1 has helped make up the difference, as games on the cable net are averaging 782,000 viewers, up 22% from 640,000 last year at this time.

SOUTHERN CHARM: CBS is averaging 5.84 million viewers for its SEC football games, up 9% from 5.34 million viewers. Last Saturday's annual primetime matchup between Alabama and LSU was lower this year, but still drew 10.4 million viewers, which ranks as the second-best college football audience this year to date. Last year’s game drew 11.1 million viewers, while the ’14 game drew 9.1 million viewers.