Ohio State continue to move the needle, even in defeat, last weekend.
Last Saturday’s Ohio State-Purdue college football game earned a 3.8 rating and 6.29 million viewers on ABC, down a tick in ratings and 10% in viewership from last year (Michigan-Penn State: 3.9, 6.95M) and down a tick and 3% respectively from 2016 (Ohio State-Penn State: 3.9, 6.48M). The game had 6.37 million with streaming included.
The Boilermakers’ upset win, which peaked with 8.11 million from 11-11:15 PM ET, delivered the fifth-largest college football audience of the season.
Ohio State has played in three of the top five games this season, including the top two — against Penn State (5.3, 9.14M) and TCU (4.2, 7.23M) on ABC in September.
Five of the top six games have involved either Ohio State or rival Michigan, with each of those five airing in ABC’s Saturday night window.
For the weekend, Ohio State-Purdue was the highest rated and most-watched college football game on any network. It finished ahead of the Michigan-Michigan State game on FOX earlier in the day (3.4, 5.42M).
It was not the day’s top sporting event, trailing the competing Dodgers-Brewers NLCS Game 7 on FS1 (4.05, 7.34K).
Earlier in the day, Penn State-Indiana had a 2.0 (-9%) and 3.13 million (-11%). Oklahoma-TCU started the day off with a 1.7 (-32%) and 2.49 million (-35%).
So far this season, 16 of 25 college football windows on ABC have declined.
The full list of week eight college football ratings is available here.
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 10.23, ESPN PR 10.23]
