- Last Sunday’s inaugural IRL Honda Indy Toronto drew a 1.0/3 final rating on ABC, the highest rating of the season for an IRL race outside of the Indianapolis 500. The 1.0 rating doubled the 0.5 for taped coverage of the F1 Santander German Grand Prix later that day. Overall, ABC averaged a 1.5 rating for its IRL coverage in ’09 (5 races), even with last year (7 races). Excluding the Indianapolis 500, ABC averaged a 0.9 rating, down 10% from last year’s 1.0.
- The final round of the U.S. Women’s Open drew a 1.2/3 final rating and 1.7 million viewers on NBC Sunday. Final round coverage drew slightly fewer viewers than a Nationwide Series race on ESPN the previous Friday (1.72 million to 1.71 million). Third round coverage on Saturday drew a 1.1/3 and 1.6 million viewers.
- FOX drew a 2.0/5 rating for its final MLB telecast before the All-Star break, up 5% from a 1.9 for coverage on the comparable date in ’08. This marks only the third time in 11 weeks that FOX has drawn at least a 2.0 rating for MLB coverage.
Ted Turner, whose cable business transformed TV sports, dies
Ted Turner, the media mogul and team owner whose TBS "SuperStation" helped pave the way the era of cable...
