I love sitting in my journalism class because everyday I know I can hear something about sports. Rightfully so, when almost half the class’ future interests involve the sports market. Walking through campus, I hear groups of students discussing draft picks, who’s the best relief pitcher in baseball, even remnants of the 2008 NCAA Championship and the 2007 BCS Orange Bowl Championship. The sports market can not be beat whether in the minds of fans or in the ratings system. I even have to admit tuning into sports a lot more the past few years, especially with the lack of television programming interesting me. With ratings racing up the charts, are people tuning out of regular television and tuning into sports more than ever?
The top 10 cable programs for the week of April 21, 2008, as recorded in an article by the Nielson Monitoring System, touted four of the top ten cable programs as sports programming. The NFL Draft came in number with over 5 million viewers, edging out the NBA Playoffs between the Suns and the Spurs by almost a half million viewers. Other noted programs were the NBA playoffs on ESPN and TNT, bringing in between 3.75 million and 4 million viewers.
TNTs ratings have risen overall holding the NBA Playoffs. An article by Jon Consoli in Mediaweek stated that TNT is averaging over 20 percent higher ratings compared to last year’s post season coverage. Overall for the 17 games played on TNT, their ratings rose more than thirty percent.
Overall for the NBA, Consoli reported over 1.2 million households tuning in for the 2007-2008 season. This comes as the highest number of households watching the games in the past six years. Overall, the NBA has seen an increase in game coverage by over 14 percent. With numbers like these, basketball has set a precedence not only on television but also online.
The coverage of the NCAA March Madness tournament proved to be a success for CBS both online and on television. Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post Staff Writer, discussed this successful market in a recent publication. The network gained $4.83 for every viewer online, totaling over 4.8 million viewers. The 132 television viewers who watched the tournament on TV brought in $4.12 per viewer. Executives noted online advertising came at a higher price than television ads, a switch that will surely continue in sports to come.
Basketball isn’t the only sport profiting from increased ratings. The Nissan Open raked in over 31 percent more viewers than the past few years. The final round was able to pull the highest ratings the PGA Tournament has been able to pull since 2004. The Masters followed this trend drawing in record ratings as noted in a recent article by the Associated Press. The second round became the most-viewed round on cable despite the fourth round coverage being down from 2007.
The rise in demographics for sports programming has swept the spectrum, reaching from young adults upward. I associate this trend with a renewed interest in sporting events on television. With ratings down for prime time viewing, it seems the shift in America has been away from the reality television shows, the dramas and the crime shows, and back to your great sporting events. With the upcoming Olympic Games, this trend won’t be over soon. Grey’s and Desperate Housewives won’t be taken away soon, but they do have a strong competitor to contend with, America's favorite past time, sports.
Comments (1)
This is interesting. I found this in my research too when I was looking at the trends in TV programming. Sports are poping up on a lot of major networks and gainig a ton of viewers. This increase is making networks happy becasue the more viewers, the more ad revenue and the more money they get.
Posted by Wendy | May 8, 2008 3:33 PM
Posted on May 8, 2008 15:33