ESPN Strikes Ratings Gold With College, NFL Football

by srr50 on Sep 16, 2009 5:02 PM CDT in Texas Longhorns and Other Football

Last weekend offered further proof that football is the sport of choice among fans, and ESPN is its top promoter. The WWL set cable viewing records for both the USC-Ohio State game and Monday Night Football.

The Saturday night telecast of the Trojan's 18-15 win over the Buckeyes was the network's most-viewed college football game ever. Over 10.5 million viewers tuned into the game.

USC's win over Ohio State helped ESPN become the number one TV network for the night -- cable or broadcast.

It wasn't just the number of eyeballs that were glued to the set that made the WWL overjoyed. Their success over all the various platforms of new media that night was also impressive. The game was simulcast of ESPN360.com and it helped the website record the most total hours of viewing ever on the broadband network.

ON ESPN.com, the College Football section logged more than 24 million page views.

ABC had a winner as well with the Michigan win over Notre Dame grabbing a 5.2 rating with over 8.3 million viewers.

The Wolverines 38-34 last minute win over Notre Dame was the highest-rated college football game for ABC since last years Texas-OU contest.

While the early returns on college football for both ABC and ESPN show dramatic increases from last year, the NFL still remains the true National Pastime.

The Monday Night Football doubleheader on ESPN produced the two biggest cable television audiences of the year, helping the WWL again to finish Monday night as the #1 rated network, cable or broadcast.

On Monday night, Tom Brady delivered a last-second win for the Patriots and over 14 million viewers for ESPN.

New England's dramatic 25-24 win over the Buffalo Bills was watched by the largest audience for any program on cable TV for 2009. Just over 14 million viewers tuned in.

That game was followed by San Diego vs. Oakland, which produced the second-largest cable TV audience of the year -- over 11.9 million viewers.

Back on the college front, while NBC watched with dismay as their network "team," which has seen ratings plummet over the past couple of years, finally helped to produce boffo ratings numbers for ABC, they took solace in that coming soon to the Peacock Network will be USC at Notre Dame.

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ESPN360 is the bomb. Comcast started carrying it this year and now there is no need for Gameplan since my TV has a VGA input and I can just plug in the laptop and watch whatever regionally televised ACC or Big Ten team I happen to care about on any particular weekend. Someday all TV is going to be on demand like that via the Interweb Tubes.

by johnnymac on Sep 16, 2009 8:34 PM CDT reply actions

Comcast has it now? That’s pure tits.

by admin on Sep 17, 2009 1:15 AM CDT reply actions

Comcast broadband internet that is. Still via the internet and not on cable TV (I am a DirecTV man, myself).

I think it has something to do with the respective ISP’s allowing that much bandwidth to flow through their tubes, so ESPN eventually gets them to agree and the service gets turned on. Regardless, all I really know is that it used to not work here in Houston and now any game that’s listed as “Gameplan” on ESPN is also available for free on ESPN360 with decent video quality.

They also have a lot of European and English soccer (ie the Coca Cola) that also isn’t normally televised, either. And all for free.

It is indeed the bomb.

by johnnymac on Sep 17, 2009 8:19 AM CDT reply actions

Awesome.

ESPN 360 on Comcast

by Sailor Ripley on Sep 17, 2009 9:04 AM CDT reply actions

Yep, I figured it out this weekend and watched to my heart’s content. There weren’t many good games on because of the shitty OOC scheduling of most teams, but it was still extra football. Watching Bill Snyder lose to Louisiana-Lafayette and Bobby Bowden escape Jacksonville State was fun stuff.

by Huckleberry on Sep 17, 2009 9:18 AM CDT reply actions