Baseball’s Game of the Week returned with a slight increase in viewership. In other news, ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball had a rare decline, and Indy 500 qualifying slipped on ABC.
MLB on FOX Ekes Out Increase
- Regional Major League Baseball action featuring Angels-Mets or Giants-Cardinals in most markets earned a 1.5 final rating and 2.3 million viewers on FOX Saturday night, up a tick in ratings and 3% in viewership from last year (1.4, 2.2M) but down a tick and 14% respectively from 2015 (1.6, 2.7M). It also topped the season’s previous window on FOX, Yankees-Cubs two weeks earlier (1.4, 2.2M).
Sunday Night Baseball Hits Speed Bump
- Tigers-Rangers earned a 0.8 final rating and 1.2 million viewers on the latest edition of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, down a third in ratings and viewership from Cubs-Giants last year (1.2, 1.8M) and down 11% in both measures from Rangers-Yankees in 2015 (0.9, 1.4M). It was just the second of eight SNB windows to decline from last year. On Tuesday night, Giants-Cubs had 607,000 viewers and Cardinals-Dodgers 565,000 — down 19% and up 47% respectively from last year’s doubleheader of Cubs-Cardinals (746K) and Padres-Giants (384K).
Indy Qualifying Dips on ABC
- Indianapolis 500 qualifying scored 1.18 million viewers on ABC Sunday afternoon, off 1% from last year (1.19M) but up 5% from rainout coverage in 2015 (1.12M). The 0.8 final rating was even with the past two years. On Saturday, the first day of qualifying posted a 0.6 (-14%) and 925,000 (-3%).
