And we now have crowned a new College Football National Champion in one of the strangest years in recent memory. It is fitting that the National Champion sports a two-loss record this year. It simply puts an exclamation point on a season that opened with a D1AA beating a ‘top 5 team’, another mid major having a Cinderella season, and weekends where 7 or more top 10 ranked teams were upset.
But what I found very interesting that in such a crazy and entertaining year, the National Championship game’s TeVee ratings actually dropped over 17% from the previous year. How many times do we hear that Nascar TeVee ratings are down because people are ‘not happy’ with Nascar? But one aspect that these fans omit is that there has been a trend, especially over the past 5 years in ALL televised sports. That trend has been a decline in TeVee ratings. So are ALL sports fans getting frustrated with their perspective sports and making conscious decisions to not watch broadcasts? The simple answer is no.
So what (or who) is to blame?
In a nutshell, Sports related TeVee ratings are declining due to the multitude of gadgets and services sports fans have to entertain themselves. Whether it's downloading their favorite shows to their iPod, watching clips on their cell phones, scrolling through Web sites or tuning into a niche cable television show, finicky fans have more options. And maybe more importantly, these fans have an almost instant recall via such mediums like TiVO, YouTube, and Sports Center on ESPN. There simply is not the necessity to be forced to watch a broadcast ‘live’ now, for fear of missing something.
But it is not just Sports Broadcasts that are suffering. 15 or so years ago, the leading prime-time network program, ''Seinfeld,'' averaged a 20.4 rating; in 2003 the top show, ''C.S.I.,'' generated a 16.3, and last year ‘American Idol', the top rated prime time show, averaged a 17.3 rating, down from the previous year as well.
Will the Daytona 500 rating be in decline from previous years? The answer is probably, but that has little to do with the disgruntled fan.
But what I found very interesting that in such a crazy and entertaining year, the National Championship game’s TeVee ratings actually dropped over 17% from the previous year. How many times do we hear that Nascar TeVee ratings are down because people are ‘not happy’ with Nascar? But one aspect that these fans omit is that there has been a trend, especially over the past 5 years in ALL televised sports. That trend has been a decline in TeVee ratings. So are ALL sports fans getting frustrated with their perspective sports and making conscious decisions to not watch broadcasts? The simple answer is no.
So what (or who) is to blame?
In a nutshell, Sports related TeVee ratings are declining due to the multitude of gadgets and services sports fans have to entertain themselves. Whether it's downloading their favorite shows to their iPod, watching clips on their cell phones, scrolling through Web sites or tuning into a niche cable television show, finicky fans have more options. And maybe more importantly, these fans have an almost instant recall via such mediums like TiVO, YouTube, and Sports Center on ESPN. There simply is not the necessity to be forced to watch a broadcast ‘live’ now, for fear of missing something.
But it is not just Sports Broadcasts that are suffering. 15 or so years ago, the leading prime-time network program, ''Seinfeld,'' averaged a 20.4 rating; in 2003 the top show, ''C.S.I.,'' generated a 16.3, and last year ‘American Idol', the top rated prime time show, averaged a 17.3 rating, down from the previous year as well.
Will the Daytona 500 rating be in decline from previous years? The answer is probably, but that has little to do with the disgruntled fan.
1 comment:
Well said Boomer! Our laptops are windows to the world and we simply don't rely on the telly like we use to!
It's vrooming time in Daytona!
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