Jump to content

ESPN2 Ratings


Recommended Posts

I don't mean to downplay the numbers, which probably are decent for a product targeted to such a niche audience, but let's look at this in some context.

First, the "435,000" figure is merely an estimate, extrapolated from the show's rating, which in turn is based upon the viewing habits of a few thousand "Nielsen families." According to Nielsen's website, a single ratings point represents 1,096,000 households. So, from that, I infer that the DCI broadcast scored a 0.4 rating (1.096M x 0.4 = 438K).

Second, a 0.4 rating is fairly low for its day and time slot. Now, comparing a cable rating to network ratings is kind of apples and oranges, due to the greater coverage of the networks. But with that in mind, and for comparison purposes only, note that the Overnight ratings for the same timeslot (Sept. 06 at 8 pm) were as follows:

48 Hours -- Katrina Special (CBS) 6.1 (#1 show of the evening)

Dateline -- Katrina Special (NBC) 5.5

House (Fox) 4.9

According To Jim (ABC) 4.2

Gilmore Girls (WB) 2.6

Girlfriends (UPN) 1.9

(Source: http://tv.yahoo.com/news/mw/20050907/112613795400.html)

The point being that roughly five times more people watched UPN's "Girlfriends" (one of the week's lowest rated network shows), than watched DCI.

Cable ratings are harder to find on-line, but I did see that The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, which aired at the same time, drew a 2.9 rating/3.21 million homes. (source: http://www.sfgate.com/tvradio/nielsens/indexcable.shtml).

It would be interesting to see what sort of a rating the DCI broadcast got among the 18-34 demographic. Also would be interesting to see how this number compared to past showings on PBS and in comparison to other shows on the night of September 6. I'm hoping that there is someone on DCP with access to the ratings book who can enlighten us.

Bottom line: the number that DCI Finals garnered was, IMHO, probably just OK to below average for a typical cable show, but decent for niche programming like this. I am somewhat surprised that DCI is reporting the number as "exceeding the most optimistic estimate," because that means the expectations were very low. Given the (1) several hundred thousand people who attended a drum corps show this summer, and (2) the more than a million current and former high school/college bandos, corps members, and families that should be the core target audience, and (3) the likelihood that SOME random folks would tune in, I would think that DCI would have expected a number in this range, if not higher.

Let's hope the number grows from here.

Discuss.

Edited by ChiBoyinLA
Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK. I will start the discussion with suggesting this be posted in the previous Ratings thread.

http://www.drumcorpsplanet.org/forums//ind...showtopic=69835

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...