I got a couple of questions asking why ESPN’s Michael Wilbon hates the Nielsen TV ratings in the USA and loves the TV ratings in China.That’s easy: he either is a man with a huge inferiority complex about the NBA not being nearly as popular as the NFL or he plays a man with a huge inferiority complex about the NBA not being nearly as popular as the NFL on…
If I believed that the college football championship viewership should decisively be the second most-watched television program of the year every year I’d be right there with Tim. But I have trouble coming up with a reasonable basis for believing the CFP championship game should be the second most-watched program on TV. I also have no basis for knowing whether ESPN was promised better numbers than it’s getting and even…
Through 5 weeks, across all networks and TV windows NFL viewership is averaging 15.6 million viewers per minute which is up 3 percent versus the same point in 2017. Here are the Y/Y changes for various demographics: Demographic NBC FOX CBS ESPN NFLN All Nets Households 2% 2% 6% -3% 2% 3% Total viewers 1% 1% 6% -2% 2% 3% Adults 18-49 -5% -3% 1% -4% -1% -1% Men…
Some of you wish I cared more about studio show ratings. I don’t. “I know you love High Noon, you must care about those ratings!” Nope. I’m worried Spotify will throw stupid money at Bomani and that the cult of E-Sports will assimilate Pablo. I’m worried they’ll become lost to me that way, but I don’t care about High Noon’s ratings. Or Get Up’s or First Take’s or Undisputed’s, First…
Not this month. People are interested in Nielsen’s cable coverage estimates for a variety of reasons. One is sometimes people just like long lists of familiar names with numbers attached to them. Maybe I’m just projecting. There are plenty of fans who are very interested in the difference in coverage between say USA & FS1 should WWE be on the move and the lists are useful for that. Recently…
I give what Jim Miller says a lot of weight and that’s a good strategy. I also have this tea leaf reading thing where if Jim Miller says something and I’m surprised that he said it I immediately jump to the conclusion that whatever he just said is going to happen. Very small sample size but so far the approach does have excellent predictive value. Last Friday when Jim…
Update: the 7a-10a debut telecast of Get Up! averaged 283,000 viewers per minute. That’s down 13 percent from the 327,000 the 7-10a SportsCenters averaged the same day a year ago. First Take averaged 417,000, up from 400,000 a year ago. I’m team: “Disappointing? Sure. Disastrous? Nah.” But it’s possible I’m the only member of that team who isn’t employed by ESPN. Original post: Sources tell me “Get Up!” debuted to…
Late Thursday NBC Sports PR issued a release saying out of home viewing of Super Bowl LII increased viewership by more than 12 million viewers. NBC even boasted about turning around the out of home viewing numbers so fast: “Out of home” viewership has been previously reported, but never before within four days of a live event. I’m not knocking NBC or Nielsen. In a world where we won’t see Live+7…