Media buyers were practically giddy after theannouncement that NBC’s first flex schedule game Nov. 12 would match teams fromthe NFL’s two biggest markets, the Chicago Bears and New York Giants.
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The flex schedule allowed the NFL to move this
season’s Bears-Giants game Nov. 12 to NBC. |
Every media buyer contacted for this storybelieves that the broadcaster’s late-season flex schedule, under which the NFLhandpicks the games for NBC, will increase “Sunday Night Football” ratings byanywhere from 5 percent to 20 percent.
“The flex schedule is doing what it’sdesigned to do and what we expected it to do,” said Sam Sussman, media directorat Chicago-based Starcom.
Ad buyers generally have been disappointed byNBC’s “Sunday Night Football” ratings, which have averaged a 10.8 rating/12.07million households through the first six Sunday-night games, not including itsThursday-night season opener.
Ad buyers have been particularly concernedthat NBC’s ratings have dropped each week, from the “Manning Bowl,” whichpitted Peyton Manning’s Colts against Eli Manning’s Giants and posted a 14.2rating, to the Oct. 15 Raiders-Broncos game, which pulled a 7.9 rating.
Several ad buyers said it was likely that NBCwould have to grant make-goods by the end of the year because oflower-than-expected ratings for the season’s first half.
By comparison, ESPN, a cable network that isin 19 million fewer homes, is averaging a 10.8/9.96 million homes through theseason’s first seven weeks.
“It’s the NFL, so the ratings are never goingto be awful,” said Carat USA’s Mike Law. “We expect NBC’s flex games to rate ashighly as weeks 1 to 4.”
“Sunday Night Football” ratings ranged from14.2 to 10.8 in the season’s first four weeks. In the two following weeks, itfailed to crack double digits.
“I would have liked a little bit more offensein a couple of games along the way, but the bottom line is we’ve had sixtelecasts, and four of the six have been higher rated than the comparableMonday-night game of a year ago, which is our benchmark,” NBC Universal Sportsand Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol said during a conference call last week.
While optimistic that the Giants-Bears gamecould pull a similar rating to the Sept. 10 Giants-Colts game, Sussman warnedthat the network’s Sunday night games faced new challenges in November.
Competition from other networks will betougher, since they will be in the middle of November sweeps. Furthermore, hesaid, opening weekend numbers typically are higher than those for the rest ofthe year.
If anything, the flex schedule will ensurethat NBC doesn’t fall into the same rut as ABC. Not one of ABC’s last nine December “Monday Night Football” games featured two teams with winningrecords.
