Updated July 14, 2017
Hi, I’m Robert Seidman and I started this site in November 2014 as a hobby (everyone needs a hobby!) to keep myself at least minimally engaged in the web publishing world after Bill Gorman and I sold TVbytheNumbers to Tribune.
From November 2014 through April 2017 I posted daily tables of cable sports programming (those tables are still on the web site) but, sadly, I lost the data source for those tables, so no more tables.
I still post some sports TV ratings on Twitter and enjoyed the @SportsTVRatings experience and the contacts I’ve built up so much that I decided to stick around and do a podcast.
You can still find a lot of the numbers I was posting via showbuzzdaily.com which posts the top 150 cable originals daily (usually shortly after 4PM ET) sorted by adults 18-49 which usually includes quite a bit of the cable sports nets as well as their weekly Skedball posts they post on Tuesdays (usually by 8AM or 9AM ET) which gives some fairly in-depth coverage to weekend sports TV ratings both on cable and broadcast networks.
If you’re more into digests of information than raw data, Paulsen’s sportsmediawatch.com is a great resource. Sports Business Daily/Sports Business Journal provides a ton of data and if you have job in sports media and want to understand the business better, I recommend subscribing.
I would like some numbers clarified for me that you posted in the link: http://sportstvratings.com/2015-womens-college-world-series-viewership-bettered-mens-college-world-series-by-31/2944/
Did the 2015 Women’s College World Series have 31% more viewership than the Men’s College World Series overall?
Or did the Women’s College World Series CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES (3 final games) have 31% more viewership than the Men’s Championship Series?
Please clarify for me if you can.
Lou, it was the latter — 3 game championship series vs 3 game championship series.
Hi, I have question regarding your sources for viewership data. From were do you get your information?
Thank you.
I get data from a variety of sources (mostly Network PR departments) but all the data is ultimately from Nielsen.
Hi. You spoke here of reporting on “cable” ratings, yet I saw nothing (did I miss it?) in last Sunday’s (Oct25) ratings for Universal Sports.
In addition, what about over-the-air sports ratings? I looked for them in the weekend posts (Oct24-25) but (understandable, but disappointing, based on that “cable” mention) didn’t see any.
Thanks,
Bram Weiser
@Bramweiser:
Universal Sports does not subscribe to the Nielsen service that would include it in regular daily and weekly reporting. For more info, see here:
http://sportstvratings.com/where-are-the-numbers-for-big-ten-network-cbs-sports-network-sec-network-and-others/1609/
As for the over-the-air viewership numbers, see item 2 here:
http://sportstvratings.com/where-are-the-weekend-viewership-numbers/2174/
Thank you for responding to my questions. However, I’d respectfully disagree that, as cited in the “item 2” you pointed me to, people just don’t care, even days later, about weekend ratings for over-the-air telecasts.
For instance, I want to know how last Saturday’s NBC telecast of the Rugby World Cup did, and, if it means waiting a few days to get a reasonably authoritative figure and comparison, then so be it, but I’d still want to see the answer, please, so I hope you’ll please reconsider that.
Thanks again,
Bram Weiser
Great site guys, but I truly miss your Tuesday weekly recaps… Have you stop doing them? Why?
thanks. If you mean the weekly viewership averages for the sports nets in primetime & total day there’ve been a few weeks where I didn’t get the data, but hopefully will start doing them again (though it’ll probably be hit and miss through New Years).
Those are the ones… Thanks again for the effort and hopefully you’ll get that data again soon…
Hi, first of all – thanks for the information that you provide!!! Is there any specific reason why last weekend’s data are not published yet?
Thanks Marina. I haven’t seen the full data for 11/21 & 11/22 and I don’t like to bug people during holiday weeks (Thursday is Thanksgiving in the U.S.)
FYI, the 11/21 & 11/22 tables are now up.
Hi, how comes that there are BeIN Sports en Espanyol Ratings available from last Saturday on? Will this channel be included for the future? Thanks
Marina: I included them because they were included in the report I received. I’m not sure whether that will continue to be the case.
How come you do not include all major cable stations and their sports programming, example CBS
because:
http://sportstvratings.com/where-are-the-numbers-for-big-ten-network-cbs-sports-network-sec-network-and-others/1609/
Curious if Nielsen and/or the subscribing channels have an issue with you running an advertiser-supported site based on data you don’t pay for.
Fair question, B.
Given the scale of the site (teeny-tiny) and that I don’t do customized reports or offer visitors any ability to run customized reports, and that there’s not really much more data than is available on sites like showbuzzdaily.com (no ads) or tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com (ads, and roughly 100x more traffic) I don’t think Nielsen cares or, frankly, could be bothered to even consider whether it cares.
I have more direct experience with the networks and that experience is that they don’t care. Or more specifically, that at least the PR departments don’t care. Many send at least some data about their networks and the ones that don’t have been very helpful whenever I’ve made specific requests.
Thanks for the response. I’d respectfully disagree with a couple of your assertions. Scale seems less important to me than the misappropriation of proprietary data – which Nielsen charges millions of dollars to access – for commercial purposes. Also, the “analysis” referenced in the FS1 story on SI.com seems very much customized for use in a post on a commercial site and linking back to your commercial site.
Honestly, I don’t have a dog in this fight but I’d be very surprised if Nielsen wouldn’t take issue with this on some level.
How do DVR recordings of events affect the numbers? Does my DVR recording a rerun of an event, even though I told it not to record reruns, show up as me viewing that event?
Only DVR viewing counts (and of course, only if you’re in a Nielsen family.) If you record something and don’t watch, it doesn’t count.
Hello and thank you for the data that you provide, great site!
I have one question though: will you include the column “episode” again in your data in the future?
Thanks in advance
Hi Lisa, I stopped receiving spreadsheets w/that column so I’m not sure, but hopefully it will return. It definitely made scanning for particular games much easier.
Yes indeed, it certainly did!
Thanks for the quick response and hopefully you’ll get that information again soon.
If I’m trying to determine the total number of viewers of a particular program, can I simply add your viewership numbers together or is it more complicated than that? For example, if there are three airings in a day and the totals are 1MM, 1.2MM and 1.5MM is it fair to say 3.7MM viewers watched the show?
Marcus, I liked the question so much I wrote a post about it. I’m not sure it actually answers your question, but…
http://sportstvratings.com/reader-question-how-do-you-count-multiple-telecasts-of-the-same-program/5425/
Could you guys go back to publishing the weekly NFL local market tv ratings for each city? They are basically impossible to find now. How did the Rams do in week 3 in L.A.? We would definitely tweet and retweet your numbers through a twitter page with over 19,000 followers and others would like these numbers, too.
Sadly my source for that data (The NFL) hasn’t been releasing it this year. I did do a post about the Rams first week local ratings: https://sportstvratings.com/more-fun-with-numbers-the-rams-in-la-effect/5831/ (16.1% of LA) and I tweeted out the week 2 #s (12% of LA), I didn’t see the week 3 # for LA.
Interesting in the year that the #NFL ratings are down AND they move to L.A. (where ratings were an abysmal 12 in week 2), they aren’t wanting the numbers out. Have searched everywhere in L.A. and their are no Rams tv ratings to be found. Please post if you find them!
Hi, I have question regarding the ratings for Tuesday October 25 2016: will you be able to post the data? Thank you very much!
Hi, I have question regarding the cable sports TV ratings for Tuesday October 25: will you be able to post the data? Thank you very much!
Lisa: https://sportstvratings.com/spurs-warriors-knicks-cavs-wwe-smackdown-top-cable-sports-ish-tv-ratings-for-tuesday-october-25-2016/6598/
thank you! 🙂
Hi there. I’m curious about Live+SD vs Live ratings. I can’t tell if you are reporting any Live+SD at all. I’m not sure how others treat this SD phenomenon either. Are the numbers you report Live+SD? Or are they Live only? From what I can tell, many use these two interchangeably but of course they are not the same thing. Thanks.
Hi Brian, good question. somewhere along the way I guess that bit of boilerplate got erased but all of the viewership #s posted on this site are Live+SD (includes any DVR viewing up to 3AM ET).
Hi there, is there any reason between December 8-December 14th the episode column disappeared for the daily reports? Is there any way to get those episode columns to appear, seems weird that it is missing for a week this month. Thanks!
Hi Janie:
It’s not weird. Usually I get data w/that column but sometimes I don’t. Beggars can’t be choosers…
Ok, thanks. Silly it leaves that important column out, but understand.
Hi – Thank you for this site. I read earlier the post about CBS Sports Network and other cable networks. Does this same logic apply to the regular main CBS network too? For example, I was looking at games from 1/21 and noticed Arizona/UCLA MBB wasn’t on there, it was a big game that aired on CBS. Just making sure i’m not missing something. Thanks again.
Paul,
No. CBS (and the other big broadcast networks) all subscribe to Nielsen measurement but my access to non-primetime broadcast network data is spotty. Showbuzzdaily.com does a really good recap of weekend sports (usually Tuesday mornings) that includes the numbers for broadcast nets. Under “The Sked” menu look for TV Ratings and then “Skedball”
Do you have the ratings for the NHRA live coverage on FOX on Feb. 12, 2017? I appreciate the FS1 numbers, but don’t see the big FOX channel listed. If not, where could I get them?
I am in search of TV viewers for the 1964 Kentucky Derby. Do you have any insight on TV viewership of the Derby in the 1960’s?
After this week, the Dan Patrick Show will no longer be on Audience Network and BR Live. They have been saying they have been in talks to find a new TV partner but haven’t disclosed anything yet. Currently what are the weakest sports shows in the 9am-12pm time slot currently? Do you think their show will land on a cable outlet or a streaming service like YouTube or something similar?