NFC TITLE GAME SCORES BIG

Allowing families all over the country to rehearse for February 5th’s Super Bowl parties, Sunday night’s telecast of the NFC championship game on Fox between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers attracted 57.6 million viewers — the most to watch any program on television since, well, last year’s Super Bowl. Some 31 [...]

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP DRAWS MASSIVE AUDIENCE

Sunday night’s primetime coverage of the NFC Championship game between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers on Fox averaged an extraordinary 52.73 million viewers, peaking in the first hour of primetime (7:00 p.m.) with 55.92 million, according to overnight figures released by Nielsen Research. Surprisingly, shows airing opposite the game were virtually [...]

FOOTBALL RECHARGES SATURDAY NIGHT

Saturday night provided yet another reminder to television executives that if they give viewers something worthwhile to watch on that night, they’ll flock to their sets just as they do any other night of the year. NBC’s telecast of the Detroit-New Orleans NFC Wild Card Game attracted 27.9 million viewers in primetime. Yes, that was [...]

NFL FOOTBALL: TOO MANY PLAYERS?

A day after a significant drop in the ratings for NBC’s Sunday Night Football was reported, the New York Post is now saying that overall ratings for ESPN’s Monday Night Football are down roughly 10 percent for the season. The problem may be that ESPN is being forced to air unappealing games, the Post observed, [...]

MOONVES: EVEN BAD FOOTBALL GAMES GET GOOD RATINGS

Television executives love football fans. Unlike TV shows that require dozens of producers, writers, focus groups, and public relations personnel to become successful, football requires none of that. “The NFL is an unbelievable property,” CBS chief Les Moonves told a media conference in New York on Tuesday. “You see it in the ratings: Even a [...]

REPORT: NFL PUTTING THE SQUEEZE ON NBC

NBC and the NFL have begun talks aimed at renewing Sunday Night Football, with the NFL making it clear it wants a significant increase in payments, the New York Post reported today (Friday). The current deal calls for NBC to pay the NFL about $600 million yearly for rights to air the Sunday games. According [...]

FOOTBALL COMES TO THE GAS PUMPS

It’s perhaps not enough that NFL football is the most widely discussed topic of conversation around the water cooler; it may now become the most widely discussed topic of conversation around the gas pump as well. Outcast, which aims to extend television viewing beyond the home and office and operates Pumptop TV at 12,000 gas [...]

NOBODY WATCHES TV ON SATURDAY — WANNA BET?

Who says there’s no audience for television shows on Saturdays? Demonstrating that massive numbers will tune in if they’re given something appealing to watch, CBS’s college football telecast — LSU vs. Alabama — attracted 20.01 million viewers, making it the highest-rated college football game since 2006. To be sure, NBC’s Sunday Night Football ranked higher. [...]

DIRECTV’S NFL GAMBLE PAYING OFF

DirecTV’s controversial come-on — giving new customers its pricey NFL Sunday Ticket package free for one year in return for signing a two-year contract — has paid off in spades for the satellite distributor. Although it pays the NFL $1 billion a year for the package, offering it free to new subscribers who would ordinarily [...]

PAN AM HITS AN AIR POCKET

Television viewers bailed out en masse from ABC’s Pan Am Sunday night as the series’ ratings dropped 27 percent from a week ago. Only 6.4 million viewers tuned in, making it the network’s lowest-rated show of the night and putting it ahead of only the repeats that aired on Fox instead of the American League [...]

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