Size may always matter during primetime for the big broadcast networks. Otherwise, it doesn't always matter. Or more accurately, it depends on what you're sizing.
Take my favorite hour of television bar none, the 5pm-6pm (EDT) block on ESPN of Around the Horn (ATH)and Pardon The Interruption (PTI).
Two of my favorite entertainers in the world are former sports columnist turned radio and TV host (as well as the Monday Night Football booth) Tony Kornheiser and sports columnist turned TV host, turned NBA TV analyst, Michael Wilbon.
I bet I've watched well over 90% of the airings of those shows for over six years now. 1000 airings and 2000 Uranus jokes later and it's still my favorite guilty pleasure. I love PTI, and I love it's lead-in ATH as well. Woody Paige, J.A. Adande, Bob Ryan, Kevin Blackistone, and yeah yeah, even Bill Plaschke and Jay Marriotti, and of course Anthony Joseph Giselle Bundchen Reali.
Heck, over time even Dan Le "Bam" Batard has grown on me.
I doubt we'll ever see the ratings for these shows. Ever. But it's no surprise to me they've been on forever. They appeal to a very, very affluent group of people. I'm not talking about dopes like me, or the less dopey Mr. Gorman,
I'm talking about Kobe, Shaq, Lebron, Tiger Woods. The super rich athletes and coaches these shows talk about, are watched by the super rich athletes and coaches these shows talk about. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny demographic size wise, but my guess is it's more than made up for by the average net income of the viewers. Size matters. In this case, perhaps the size of the viewers' bank accounts more than the size of the total viewing population.
One thing is fairly certain. PTI ratings are better than the ratings for the 6pm Eastern SportsCenter.
No other reason to explain the split in PTI where they hold the last 3 minutes of the show until 6:25pm or so.
One thing is fairly certain. PTI ratings are better than the ratings for the 6pm Eastern SportsCenter.
No other reason to explain the split in PTI where they hold the last 3 minutes of the show until 6:25pm or so.
One thing is fairly certain. PTI ratings are better than the ratings for the 6pm Eastern SportsCenter.
No other reason to explain the split in PTI where they hold the last 3 minutes of the show until 6:25pm or so.
One thing is fairly certain. PTI ratings are better than the ratings for the 6pm Eastern SportsCenter.
No other reason to explain the split in PTI where they hold the last 3 minutes of the show until 6:25pm or so.
When you say “I doubt we’ll ever see ratings for these shows,” why is that? Are cable ratings not released to the media, etc. like the ratings for prime-time shows? Are they released at the whim of the cable network instead?
When you say “I doubt we’ll ever see ratings for these shows,” why is that? Are cable ratings not released to the media, etc. like the ratings for prime-time shows? Are they released at the whim of the cable network instead?
only the highest-rated 40 cable shows are generally released to the media. There are so many shows on cable, that even if they were getting 2.2 million viewers per airing they’d wouldn’t make the top 40 list.
only the highest-rated 40 cable shows are generally released to the media. There are so many shows on cable, that even if they were getting 2.2 million viewers per airing they’d wouldn’t make the top 40 list.
only the highest-rated 40 cable shows are generally released to the media. There are so many shows on cable, that even if they were getting 2.2 million viewers per airing they’d wouldn’t make the top 40 list.
only the highest-rated 40 cable shows are generally released to the media. There are so many shows on cable, that even if they were getting 2.2 million viewers per airing they’d wouldn’t make the top 40 list.
Eric, when Robert says “to the media” he means “free of charge to the media”.
If you see cable ratings outside the Top 40 (the cutoff for which is about 3 million viewers) they were made public by a paying Nielsen customer.
Eric, when Robert says “to the media” he means “free of charge to the media”.
If you see cable ratings outside the Top 40 (the cutoff for which is about 3 million viewers) they were made public by a paying Nielsen customer.
that is what I meant, though it’s not even that simple.
I wind up “freely” getting information for *many* cable shows that don’t make the top 40 because they are released by Nielsen in other venues or the networks themselves, but I’ve never seen ESPN issue a press release on actual PTI or ATH ratings. though did see this release that indicates both PTI and ATH reached new highs last year.
that is what I meant, though it’s not even that simple.
I wind up “freely” getting information for *many* cable shows that don’t make the top 40 because they are released by Nielsen in other venues or the networks themselves, but I’ve never seen ESPN issue a press release on actual PTI or ATH ratings. though did see this release that indicates both PTI and ATH reached new highs last year.
So does that mean, to refer back to a previous post and my previous comment, the reason that we heard local ratings for the Caps games but not for Comcast broadcasts of the Wizards games is because Comcast didn’t want to release them (which would lead one to believe they weren’t that good)?
So does that mean, to refer back to a previous post and my previous comment, the reason that we heard local ratings for the Caps games but not for Comcast broadcasts of the Wizards games is because Comcast didn’t want to release them (which would lead one to believe they weren’t that good)?
Eric, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. Most of the data I got didn’t come to me directly via Comcast. Though Comcast *did* issue a press release last week about record NHL ratings. When new records were later made, it didn’t issue subsequent releases. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for them to promote ratings heavily — there’s not much upside in talking regularly about “typical” or even better than average ratings.
I got acces to the local Capitals Nielsen data because…I got access to some Capitals Nielsen data. I am seeing what I can do wrt the Wizards data. I doubt it’s fair to assume just because there’s no press release that the ratings are BAD. Not “record-breaking” is probably a fair assumption.
Eric, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. Most of the data I got didn’t come to me directly via Comcast. Though Comcast *did* issue a press release last week about record NHL ratings. When new records were later made, it didn’t issue subsequent releases. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for them to promote ratings heavily — there’s not much upside in talking regularly about “typical” or even better than average ratings.
I got acces to the local Capitals Nielsen data because…I got access to some Capitals Nielsen data. I am seeing what I can do wrt the Wizards data. I doubt it’s fair to assume just because there’s no press release that the ratings are BAD. Not “record-breaking” is probably a fair assumption.
Thanks, Robert. I didn’t mean to imply that the Wizards ratings were bad, just presumably nothing special, as you said.
And thanks for looking into the Wizards ratings. It’s hard to know exactly what ratings mean sometimes if you can’t compare them to the ratings of other shows on at the same time. And I think it’s a fascinating subject to compare which teams in the Washington area (or any area) draw more interest than others, and TV ratings are one way to do it. For some reason, the Washington Post chooses not to even examine the issue (they don’t even have a sports business/media reporter who writes for the print edition of the paper), even though they’ve justified lack of coverage of some sports by citing TV ratings (for instance, a couple years ago, the Caps beat reporter said he wasn’t covering the Stanley Cup finals that year because of the editors felt there was a lack of interest determined by TV ratings.)
Even without comparisons, though, I can tell that the Caps ratings last night were remarkable.
Thanks, Robert. I didn’t mean to imply that the Wizards ratings were bad, just presumably nothing special, as you said.
And thanks for looking into the Wizards ratings. It’s hard to know exactly what ratings mean sometimes if you can’t compare them to the ratings of other shows on at the same time. And I think it’s a fascinating subject to compare which teams in the Washington area (or any area) draw more interest than others, and TV ratings are one way to do it. For some reason, the Washington Post chooses not to even examine the issue (they don’t even have a sports business/media reporter who writes for the print edition of the paper), even though they’ve justified lack of coverage of some sports by citing TV ratings (for instance, a couple years ago, the Caps beat reporter said he wasn’t covering the Stanley Cup finals that year because of the editors felt there was a lack of interest determined by TV ratings.)
Even without comparisons, though, I can tell that the Caps ratings last night were remarkable.