Wednesday, October 29, 2008

2008 Breeders Cup Ratings-A Closer Look

The three-hour “Filly”Friday broadcast on ESPN2 drew a 0.3 overnight rating. Ratings were flat when compared with 2007 ratings which were also 0.3 for a two-hour broadcast on the same network from rainy Monmouth Park.

Saturdays ratings are split as the broadcast was on ABC from 1-3:30 before switching over to ESPN from 3:30-7:00 pm.

The ESPN portion of the Saturday broadcast drew a 1.0 overnight rating, compared with a 0.75 last year when the entire Saturday broadcast was on ESPN, whereas the ABC portion drew a 1.3 rating, according to numbers provided by ABC.

A 1.3 rating corresponds to about 2 million viewers.
How does that compare to other sporting events this weekend. Not very well I am afraid.

Lets use the highest rated portion of the 2 day weekend cable/broadcast for comparison purposes-which would be the ABC Saturday rating of 1.3

Have a gander:

Horse Racing-ABC-Saturday-1-3:30pm: 1.3
NASCAR - ABC, Pep Boys Auto 500-Sunday-2:00pm: 3.2
College Football(regional games)-ABC-Saturday 3:30 pm:-5.2
College Football (Ohio-Penn St.)-ABC-Saturday 8:00 pm:7.2
Football-Fox-Sunday-4:00 pm (Giants/Steelers): 15.6
Baseball-World Series-Saturday –10 pm (rain delayed start)-6.1
Baseball-World Series-Sunday-8:00 pm- 10.7
Figure skating- NBC, Skating For Life (4 PM Saturday, taped)-1.0

The ABC Saturday afternoon college football game with a 5. 2 was up directly against the ESPN Saturday BC Coverage which was 1.0. The Taped NBC Skating special was also up directly against the ESPN cablecast. CBS also had a Saturday afternoon game, however results are currently unavailable.

NFL Football is a TV ratings monster, College football, The Baseball World Series (even a low rated one), and NASCAR all easily beat the Breeders Cup in the ratings. I have been known to be critical before regarding the ESPN coverage, but in an effort to be more positive let me highlight that the ESPN Saturday BC cablecast did tie the NBC Taped Nancy Kerrigan Skating Special on NBC.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least it was more watched than figure skating.

Anonymous said...

Good thing Tonya Harding wasn't skating or we woulda bottomed out.

Only goes to show if the BC moved some races to Sunday, racing would have been crushed by the NFL. Thanks for the info.