The Worldwide Leader...

Lugnuts,

We're operating from the assumption that ratings aren't completely fraudulent, of course.

Otherwise, the ESPN broadcast is superior, on-air talent aside. You can't actually read the NBC graphics on some TVs, for one thing. And the picture is hazy and drab.

ESPN has a sharp look, nice pacing. Overdid the TO thing looking for the reactions he had during the Philly. Then, in a moment made for blistering Owens - his drop - they blow it.

What helps ESPN the most is its amateurish on-air talent. Those guys, occasionally insightful as they are, aren't even remotely objective, or even smart. They're still saying Owens is the best receiver in the NFL. Still. When...he never was. Not one single, solitary year of his career has he been the best receiver. Not statistically. And not "on the field." He's a damn slot receiver half the time, doing little picks and crossing routes.

And ESPN has an unhealthy obsession with Baltimore. Do you know why that is?

 

Because Stuart Scott is best friends with Ray Lewis and gets free Ravens stuff for everyone in Bristol?

 

Love of God, it wasn't written in Esperanto. Of course, a sports network, especially one with about 1,116 platforms, is going to promote MNF, its new toy, as if it were Armageddon. On ABC previously and on NBC now, the prime-time football game is going to get mixed in, promo-wise, with the prime-time lineup, with the evening news, etc. So it getting real good ratings on ESPN is no shock. The production or the announcers having much to do with that would be more surprising.

 

Well I knew that. And Mel Kiper has too much of an interest in that franchise because he's from there.

But I doubt Stuart Scott dictates how many times Baltimore has shown up on Sunday and Monday Night football in the last five years: More than 10 (Including, in one year, four times).

In that span Baltimore is 32-32 and home of the ugliest offense in the NFL.

 

ESPN gets hated on for being the Biggest and Best. Probably just and unjust. I hope they utilize more hip hop. They are 15 years behind.

 

Ok, I got confused, because in your previous post, you'd doubted the ratings were actually that good at all, what with your "apples to oranges" argument. When you realized you were wrong about that, you switched strategies on me! ;D

But now you're saying the good ratings can be attributed to promotion.

Tell that to NBC. They spent millions promoting Studio 60. It ain't workin'.

I do think the MNF ad campaign clicks... but the production still has to be good... otherwise you lose audience.

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On another thread at some future point, we could discuss why MNF's "surround programming" is also through the roof. Whereas NBC's pregame junk isn't rating particularly well.

 

Lugnuts, I read a blurb that NBC's Sunday night coverage is, of course, beating last year's cable Sunday Night NFL, but also last year's MNF.

So could it be that ratings for all NFL broadcasts are up? I don't know and it's not a fighting point, just asking the question.

 

Not surprisingly, board fav Phil Mushnick is not impressed with espn's coverage of MNF.

October 27, 2006 -- STRANGE, but true. Starting Tuesday morning, ESPN spends all week making sure that you watch Monday Night Football. Then, when the game begins, it makes sure that you can't.

ESPN seems mighty proud that its Giants-Cowboys, Monday, set a cable viewership record. Mighty proud.

Then again, how many in ESPN's record-breaking audience Monday, tuned in because the game was on ESPN? None.

How many tuned in spite of the fact that it was on ESPN? Plenty.

Monday's record-breaker makes for a particularly interesting coincidence because, start to finish, it appeared to be the worst telecast of an NFL game in the history of TV. Game? What game? Where?

Even before it was abandoned for interviews with Hank Williams, Jr. and ABC's "Dancing With The Stars" contestant Emmitt Smith, the game wasn't covered, it was exploited. And even the dimmest in ESPN's audience could recognize they were being had.

The guy we most feel for is play-by-play man Mike Tirico. At this point, Tirico should be nationally recognized as one of the steadiest and smoothest in the business, a pro.

But ESPN and Disney won't allow it. They'd rather he serve as floor manager in a Disney department store.

Heck, a clip of Tirico should be shown weekly in ESPN's shameless "He Got Jacked Up!" segment.

It has been quite a week. Fox continues its everything-but-the-game coverage of the World Series while ESPN sets a cable TV viewership record for its latest everything-but-the-game Monday Night Football telecast. We saw more of NFL and World Series games in 1976 than in 2006.

It keeps getting worse. Instead of a network aspiring to become known as the one that covers the game best - these days, an easy reputation to attain - the fight remains to be the one that covers the game the least.

 

Season-to-date? Yes, but remarkably-- only slightly. And that makes sense because one is cable and the other b'cast -- ESPN in only 80% of the homes NBC is. (If you look at the rating, ESPN will show a higher number. But the apples-to-apples comparison is a number called "U.S. Households.")

Last Sunday's game? I don't know, because I can't find the SNF U.S. HH rating.

The Sunday before that? No. ESPN did a higher number in U.S. HH. MNF beat SNF in apples-to-apples. And it wasn't Giants-Cowboys. (In fairness, didn't SNF have a crappy matchup that week?)

 

There wasn't an SNF game this past Sunday. NFL hasn't gone head-to-head with Game 2 of the World Series for several years.

 

Studio 60's success or lack of it isn't the point. The point that it's being promoted heavily is the point. ESPN can focus pretty much all its promotional muscle across all its now 1,855 platforms on MNF, whereas SNF is just part of NBC's promotional mix. And yes, I feel that ESPN would do just as well with the Jefferson-Pilot crew, and that their ratings records register a "no frickin kidding" reaction.

 

12 years in television and 12 years of looking at ratings... but you know what? You guys are probably right. You know better than I do about these things.