Ratings low for opening Series game

AP via ESPN..com ^ | 10/20/2002

[GeneD]

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The all-California Classic opened with the lowest overnight ratings for a prime-time World Series Game 1. But it still was by far the night's most-watched show.

Fox Sports' telecast of the San Francisco Giants' 4-3 victory over the Anaheim Angels on Saturday drew an 11.2 rating.

That means 11.2 percent of TV homes in the country's largest markets tuned in. It's a drop of 5 percent from Game 1 of last year's World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees, which had an 11.8 overnight rating on Fox.

The 2000 opener of the Subway Series between the Yankees and Mets, also on Fox, produced a 14 overnight rating. That series wound up having the lowest average national ratings in baseball history, 12.4.

The good news for Fox: The 11.0 rating during prime time for Giants-Angels beat the 6.5 for CBS, the 4.2 for NBC, and the 3.8 for ABC.

Fox is paying $2.5 billion for TV rights to postseason baseball from 2001-06. The ratings for the AL and NL championship series were the highest in three years.

Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, covering nearly 70 percent of the country. Each overnight rating point represents about 735,000 TV homes.

Saturday night's broadcast peaked with an 11.7 rating from 9-10 p.m. ET. San Francisco had the highest big-market rating, with 30.9 percent of TV homes there tuned in, followed by Los Angeles at 26.9.

Not surprisingly, the game's appeal was much lower in New York (9.9 overnight rating) and Chicago (9.4).

The national rating is expected Tuesday.

[GeneD]

Maybe we all hope for smaller ratings for Bud, for Rupert, and for the morons sponsoring the backstop.

[Conagher]

Good. Major League Ba$eball sucks. I'm damned tired of their whining and complaining. It's about time that people started tuning out.

[xrp]

Woohoo! Baseball as a nationally watched sport is slowly dying. I give it 10-15 years. I only wish that MLB had gone ahead and went on strike so that would have been 5-10 years instead! :(

[UB355]

I'm glad someone else feels the way I do about the backstop ads. Just plain annoying

[Diddle E. Squat]

Just turned it off. Bad call at 2nd prevented the 3rd out and let the Giants take the lead. But that's not why I'm turning it off. No, its the idiot Fox Sports(gee, what a surprise), unable to come up with more than 1 replay for about 5 minutes after the controversial play. Plenty of different close-up shots of player, bench, and fan reactions, but not the actual play that was so pivotal. Yeah, yeah, smarmy entertainment executives keep telling us that we are too stupid and spastic to watch just the sport, gotta add all those bells, whistles, and human interest crap. I tuned in to watch a ballgame, not a circus.

And then when they finally get a 2nd angle, which clearly shows the guy was out at 2nd, primadona McCarver just can't bring himself to change from his incorrect hasty conclusion. "Well I guess it was close." Close my asparagus, I guess being TM means never having to admit being wrong. So click off, and back to Free Republic.

Rot in hell Fox( once again. Fox News Channel is the only good thing to ever come out of Fox.)

[glasseye]

sounds like sour grapes to me...maybe 'BIG TIME WRESTELING' would be more to your likeing.....the games have been great!

[Conagher]

sounds like sour grapes to me

Hardly. Do you think the entire rest of the country is suffering from "sour grapes" as well?

maybe 'BIG TIME WRESTELING' would be more to your likeing

How about if you turn off your television and learn to spell, moron? Judging from your incredibly obvious lack of education, I'd guess "BIG TIME WRESTELING" [sic] to be right up your alley.

[glasseye]

Do you think the entire rest of the country is suffering from "sour grapes" as well?

Maybe the rest of the country is waiting for another Yankee Braves series.

How about if you turn off your television and learn to spell, moron?

My TV has been off since the second election of Klinton....and as for the moron flame bit.....anal spelling nazi types can do the 'verticle rope urination' thing as far as I am concerned....*smile

[FormerLib]

Oh, the World Seris started? Who's playing?

Ah, on second thought, never mind. Who cares?

[Conagher]

Maybe the rest of the country is waiting for another Yankee Braves series.

*YAWN!* MLB is dead.

. . . anal spelling nazi types can do the 'verticle rope urination' thing as far as I am concerned....*smile

At least it got you to clean up your spelling....*smile

< /sarcasm>