Despite a pair of uninspiring match-ups, ABC’s “Saturday Night Football” not only topped all other action last weekend, but also improved over last year’s comparable telecast.
Regional college football action featuring Michigan/Connecticut earned a 3.5 final rating and 5.7 million viewers on ABC last Saturday, up 21% in ratings and 20% in viewership from Clemson/Florida State last year (2.9, 4.8M), but down 15% and 12%, respectively, from LSU/West Virginia in 2011 (4.1, 6.5M).
The telecast ranked as the highest rated and most-viewed college football game of week four. [For the full list of Week 4 college football ratings, click here.]
Ranking in second-place was Michigan State/Notre Dame on NBC, which earned a 3.2 final rating and 4.9 million viewers — down 20% in ratings and 25% in viewership from a primetime Michigan/Notre Dame game last year (4.0, 6.4M), but up 23% and 25%, respectively, from Michigan State/Notre Dame in 2011 (2.6, 3.8M).
CBS ranked third for the week with Tennessee/Florida (2.8), up 12% from Missouri/South Carolina last year (2.5), and down a tick from Arkansas/Alabama in 2011 (2.9).
Rounding out the top five, ESPN scored a 2.2 and 3.8 million viewers for Auburn/LSU in primetime, and ABC earned a 1.9 and 2.8 million for regional coverage in the afternoon.
FOX drew a mere 1.2 and 1.9 million viewers for its primetime Arizona State/Stanford game, down a third in ratings and viewership from Kansas State/Oklahoma last year (1.8, 2.8M), and tied as the network’s lowest rated primetime college football game.
Vanderbilt/Massachusetts on ESPNEWS and Louisiana-Monroe/Baylor on Fox Sports 1 were the weakest draws of the day, each earning a mere 0.1 rating.
(Numbers from Sports Business Daily, Son of the Bronx [1], [2])
