Recent sports TV ratings news, including the Winter X Games on ESPN, the NBA on ESPN, and Pardon the Interruption on ESPN.
Coverage of night one of the Winter X Games earned a 0.7 U.S. rating and 1.279 million viewers on ESPN Thursday night, up 1% in viewership from last year’s comparable telecast (1.271 mil). Earlier in the day, live afternoon coverage on ESPN2 drew a 0.3 and 311,000 viewers. On Friday, primetime coverage drew a 0.7 and 1.250 million, down 13% in viewership from last year (1.431 mil). (pifeedback.com, 1, 2)
Friday’s Celtics/Suns game drew a 1.2 U.S. rating and 1.999 million viewers on ESPN. There was no NBA telecast on the comparable night a year earlier. The Suns’ win built on its X Games lead-in by 71% in ratings and 60% in viewership. (pifeedback.com)
As is apparently the norm, Thursday’s episode of Pardon the Interruption was again the evening’s highest rated program on ESPN or ESPN2. The show’s 0.9 rating topped all other ESPN talk shows and studio shows — trouncing Around the Horn and Rome Is Burning — as well as four college basketball games and the Winter X Games. That said, its 1.155 million viewers trailed ESPN’s Michigan/Michigan State college basketball game (1.231 mil) and X Games coverage (1.279 mil). (pifeedback.com)
