- Tom Watson‘s hometown of Kansas City tuned in en masse to watch the 59-year-old golfer come up just short in Sunday’s final round of the British Open. Final round coverage of The Open, which Watson lost in a playoff to Stewart Cink, drew a 7.3 rating in the Kansas City market, up 62% from a 4.5 last year, and the top rating of any local market for the event.
- The New York Mets may be under .500, but that has not had much of a negative effect on the TV ratings. The Mets’ first two Sunday Night Baseball games of the season averaged a 2.2 rating on ESPN, “better than the … 1.9 season average,” reports the New York Times. Meanwhile, ESPN has averaged a 1.0 for Mets games on Monday nights, “equal to ESPN?s season average,” and a 0.8 for Mets games on Wednesday nights, “off a bit from the overall 0.9 average.”
- NBC saw mixed results for its coverage of the American Century Championship over the weekend. The net drew a 1.0 overnight rating for coverage of the celebrity golf event on both Saturday and Sunday — up 25% and down 9%, respectively, from the comparable dates last year.
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...
