via Fox Sports:
FOX REIGNS AS HISTORIC SUSPENDED GAME 5 DELIVERS NETWORK BEST MONDAY SINCE MAY
Philadelphia - Baseball history was made last night when severe weather conditions in Philadelphia forced World Series Game 5 to be suspended. It is the first time a World Series game has been suspended in-progress, forcing it to be concluded on a different day. Game 5 is scheduled to resume Wednesday night at 8:30 PM ET with the Phillies coming to bat in the bottom of the sixth with the score tied 2-2.
FOX earned an 8.2/12 household rating/share (13.2 million viewers) last night for the first five-and-a-half innings of Game 5. Comparisons to all previous World Series games are irrelevant due to the unprecedented suspension. When Game 5 is completed, Nielsen will issue a separate rating for the second portion of the game, and under Nielsen rules the two segments can not be officially combined into one rating.
Highlights
- Last night's pre-game show (4.1/7) and the completed portion of the game combined to average a 7.5/11 in prime time and a 3.7 among Adults 18-49. FOX ranked first for the night in prime among Adults 18-49, Adults 18-34 (3.1), in every significant male demo and second among households. Among both Households and Adults 18-49, last night rates as FOX's top Monday night in 23 weeks.
- The audience for Game 5 was growing as the evening progressed. It posted a 6.5/10 at 8:30 and a 6.7/10 at 9:00, surged to 8.8/13 at 9:30, 9.6/15 at 10:00. The final quarter-hour of the broadcast earned a 10.4/16 as the decision was made to halt the game.
- The last World Series Game 5 posted a 10.3/18 (16.3 million viewers) for the decisive game of the 2006 World Series between the Cardinals and the Tigers. To this point, the 2008 World Series has averaged an 8.1/14 (13.1 million), down -24% in rating compared to last year's 10.6/18 (17.1 million) for Boston's four-game sweep over Colorado. The '08 series is off 20% in rating and -17% in rating and audience, respectively compared to the five-game '06 World Series featuring the Cardinals and Tigers (10.1/17, 15.8 million).
- Philadelphia posted a stratospheric 45.2/60 last night for what could have been - and could still be - the decisive game of the Series. That 45.2/60 tops all games of the 2001 NBA Finals with the Sixers. Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg delivered a 28.1/40, a slight improvement over its Game 4 rating (27.5/41). Florida markets Orlando (12.2), West Palm Beach (12.0) and Ft. Myers (11.4) followed and other markets posting above average viewership for the first part of Game 5 include Minneapolis (11.0), Baltimore (10.0), Milwaukee (9.9) and Phoenix (9.5).
Ha. I love how defensive they are.
defensive because they brought up the Nielsen rules on combining or something else? If that, I see that as excellent attention to detail on Fox’s part! They’re very forthcoming about it being down 24% vs. last year without masking it. I find it very refreshing!
No the whole “Don’t compare us to any other year! This doesn’t count!”
Ah, gotcha. But it really has never happened before. I see it as savvy PR, but I’m with you either way, I love it!
This is/was the best thing FOX could have hoped for. They will have the Obama thing on from 8-8:30 then the last three innings of game five. Question: Will the Obama thing count towards the ratings? Or be metered?
Johnny, My guess is we will see numbers from Nielsen in the same way we did with the debates, but I am not certain.
We’ll see the data, but with the debates the numbers did not count towards network weekly averages or season-to-date totals (the post-debate analysis was counted though). Since the Obama program is paid for (versus advertising supported) I’m not sure how it will count.
Baseball: America’s favorite pastime? Not any more. Among steroids, lack of exciting players, and competition of other sports, baseball is slowly going where boxing is right now…Oh, well…