Overnight ratings declined again for the World Series, but Game 4 did well for a Saturday night.
Saturday’s Red Sox-Dodgers World Series Game 4 earned a 9.8 overnight rating on FOX, down 8% from Dodgers-Astros last year (10.6) and down 7% from Indians-Cubs in 2016 (10.5). The 9.8 is the lowest for Game 4 of the World Series since Royals-Mets in 2015 (9.1).
Despite the decline, Boston’s comeback win delivered the third-highest overnight for a Saturday World Series game since 2009 (Yankees-Phillies Game 3: 10.8). Last year and 2016 hold the top two spots.
Keep in mind last year’s game had an unusually strong lead-in from the Penn State-Ohio State college football game (6.7). Overnights for this year’s Kansas State-Oklahoma lead-in were not available, but outside of Georgia-Florida on CBS (4.5), no college football game on Saturday exceeded a 2.5.
Notably, Game 4 posted a four percent increase over the seven-hour, 18-inning Game 3 the previous night (9.5*) — marking the first time in this series that overnights have increased over the previous game.
Even so, Saturday’s game did not change the downward trajectory of the series. All four games have declined to a multi-year low. No game of this year’s World Series has had as high an overnight as the previous 15 games — every game of Astros-Dodgers and Cubs-Indians, and the final game of Royals-Mets.
Game 4 earned a 30.5 rating in Boston, down 12% from 2013 (34.7). The 30.5 is the second-lowest for a Red Sox game in Boston this century, ahead of Game 3 the previous night (30.3).
In Los Angeles, Game 4 had a 24.7 — up 6% from last year (23.2).
* Game 3 figures do not include the final hour of the telecast, as FOX stopped running national ads after the 13th inning.
[Numbers from Fox Sports PR/Twitter 10.28]
