TV Ratings for Nationals

[Joesitz (RIP)]

NBC also owns CNBC, MSNBC, USA, and Bravo.

Hardly sports channels. Do you think they are pushing for the Olys rating buster by suspending their current programming on the mentioned cable channels? There is no evidence of that so far but one can dream.

btw, has anyone checked the Nielsen's ratings for the Nationals? I know it looks better with the NBC review. But will this give us the GPs outside of SA? 4CC? I'm still waiting for the LIVE (read last group of Ladies only) coverage of 2009 Worlds which will be in the US. With the ratings up from their perspective, I should think NBC would come out and say that they will cover those very important Worlds. It's not enough just to see US Nats before those Worlds.

Joe

 

[R.D.]

Joe- it got a 2.0 Saturday afternoon, 3.8 Sat. night and 3.5 Sun. night. While the primetime broadcasts kept NBC in 4th place (last in the 18-49 demo), they were the 2nd and 3rd highest rated sporting events that weekend (behind the Buick Invitational Golf final on Sunday). It did beat the NBA on ABC though (in total ratings).

IMHO, if skating really wants to bring itself back at least to 2004/2005 levels, it desperately needs to find a way to draw that 18-49 crowd. Skating still gets a lot of viewers but the audience is OVERWHELMINGLY senior (and I'm sure many of the club kids also watch). I guess it doesn't help that the ladies' competition is full of young teenagers, though...still, that falls on the USFS to figure out a campaign to sell skating better. It took a step in the right direction by signing with NBC, which appears to be much more committed to the product than ESPN/ABC ever was, but they still need to do much more. I think during the "post-whack" boom, skating sold itself so there wasn't as much a need to advertise or sell the product, but now it's more important than ever. The important question is, do TPTB even know where to START?

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Until I know something more factually about the NBC plans for showing Figure Skating, I have to go along with the ABC/ESPN mourners.

I wasn't home so I don't know what was shown, but NBC gave the first two groups of Ladies a disservice having them skate at 8:45 in the morning. They must have gotten up at 4am to get their gear together and get to the Arena. Not much sleep.

Joe

 

[R.D.]

I'm still waiting for the LIVE (read last group of Ladies only) coverage of 2009 Worlds which will be in the US. With the ratings up from their perspective, I should think NBC would come out and say that they will cover those very important Worlds. It's not enough just to see US Nats before those Worlds.

I believe we are all waiting for an announcement. But just like Canadians weren't sure that they were getting coverage of THIS year's worlds until a couple of weeks ago, we probably won't know until after the season ends...probably over the summer or early fall.

I think if nbc can strike an ISU deal similar to what they have with the USFS, they'll take it on since they already have the resources to promote and build up to the coverage. I would NOT expect any GP's though, since they already have a bunch of skating (the Disson shows) scheduled around that time, or if so they may not give more than an hour's coverage to them.

Somehow I think Fox might be their best bet. didn't they do coverage one year (1997)? And use American Idol as a promotional window to try and draw in the younger crowd

 

[R.D.]

I wasn't home so I don't know what was shown, but NBC gave the first two groups of Ladies a disservice having them skate at 8:45 in the morning. They must have gotten up at 4am to get their gear together and get to the Arena. Not much sleep.

yeah, that kind of would be a bummer for them. Still, how did that group skate? I think NBC could have shown at least highlights from that group rather than re-showing Marai's SP, but maybe the latter worked out because of the people tuning in that did not watch the SP's that afternoon.

 

[waxel]

Perhaps NBC will pick up the ISU contract and spread it out over USA and other outlets?

I'm fairly confident that someone will pick up Worlds, but I am deathly afraid after this year we won't see any GP.

NBC SERIOUSLY needs to tweak the announcement of scoring and the graphics used. It was impossible to tell what was going on... who was ahead... what the LP scores were... sheesh even Johnny Weir couldn't tell what was going on with that dash-dash-dash-this-is-how-many-points-behind-the-next-competitor-is routine. They need to clean that up. When it is hard for us die-hards to follow- how can the casual viewer be expected to keep up. I eventually started writing down the scores so I could compare them myself.