Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Weekend TORC Ratings...




Ahhh...the weekend TV ratings for off-road racing. The first short course event broadcast on network TV in '09 (LOORRS and TORC previously broadcast on Speed and ESPN2 and more difficult to find ratings for) was this past weekend. The overall ratings are pretty good as far as I'm concerned as it garnered a 0.7 rating, meaning 0.7% of the 114.5 million households with TVs were tuned into the TORC broadcast or simply--Approximately 802,000 households in the U.S. watched the TORC event. Just how many people that actually equals is unknown. If you conservatively figure that each household represents 1.1 actual viewers (as you know at LEAST one person in each of those households was watching the event but don't know just how high the number of actual viewers in each household might be) then the 802,000 households means at least approximately 900,000 individual Americans saw the TORC broadcast.

Though these rating pale in comparison to events like the NBA finals or Tiger's comeback win at the Memorial PGA tour event, TORC outperformed higher profile and more expensive events like a WNBA game (women's basketball) and LPGA event (women's golf), though TORC did lag behind a road running event (Prefontaine Classic) on NBC. All in all, not a bad start...lets see how it progresses from here.


Overnight ratings for sporting events on broadcast.


Basketball

SportGame/EventDateTimeNetRating
NBAMagic/Lakers Game 2Sun., 6/7/098:00 PMABC9.9/-
NBANBA CountdownSun., 6/7/097:30 PMABC2.7/-
WNBAShock/SparksSat., 6/6/092:30 PMABC0.6/-

  • The 9.9 overnight for Sunday night's Game 2 of the NBA Finals was off 3% from last year's 10.2, but marks the second-highest overnight for a Game 2 in the NBA Finals since '04.
  • ABC drew a 0.6 overnight for Shock/Sparks on Saturday afternoon, down 33% from a 0.9 for Sparks/Mercury in '08.

Golf
SportGame/EventDateTimeNetRating
PGAThe Memorial, Final RoundSun., 6/7/092:30 PMCBS3.6/9
PGAThe Memorial, Third RoundSat., 6/6/093:00 PMCBS1.9/5
PGA"The PGA Tour: Playing With A Purpose"Sun., 6/7/091:30 PMCBS0.7/2
LPGAState Farm Classic, Final RoundSun., 6/7/094:00 PMNBC0.6/1
LPGAState Farm Classic, Third RoundSat., 6/6/093:00 PMNBC0.5/1

  • Tiger Woods' win at The Memorial drew a 3.6 overnight on CBS Sunday, up 100% from last year's 1.8, and the highest overnight for the final round of The Memorial since '04.

Tennis
SportGame/EventDateTimeNetRating
TennisFrench Open, Men's Final (Federer/Soderling)Sun., 6/7/099:00 AMNBC1.8.5
TennisFrench Open, Women's Final (Kuznetsova/Safina)Sat., 6/6/099:00 AMNBC1.4/4

  • Roger Federer's record-tying 14th Grand Slam victory was not a huge hit in the ratings. The 1.8 overnight for the Men's Final at the French Open is even with last year, and down 18% from a 2.2 in '07.
  • The French Open Women's Final drew a 1.4 overnight on NBC Saturday morning, down 22% from last year's 1.8.

Horse racing
SportGame/EventDateTimeNetRating
Horse racingThe Belmont Stakes, Race SegmentSat., 6/6/095:30 PMABC5.0/-
Horse racingThe Belmont Stakes, Total CoverageSat., 6/6/095:00 PMABC4.3/-

  • The race segment of The Belmont Stakes drew a 5.0 overnight on ABC Saturday, down 52% from a 10.5 last year, when Big Brown was going for the Triple Crown. The 5.0 marks a 43% jump from a 3.5 in '07, the last year there was no possibility of a Triple Crown winner.

Other
SportGame/EventDateTimeNetRating
NHLPenguins/Red Wings Game 5Sat., 6/6/098:00 PMNBC2.6/5
Track & FieldPrefontaine ClassicSun., 6/7/092:00 PMNBC1.2/3
RacingOff Road Racing, Traxxas Torc Truck Series (taped)Sun., 6/7/095:00 PMABC0.7/-
OtherJeep World of Adventure (taped)Sat., 6/6/095:00 PMNBC0.5/1

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