Viewership rose by nearly a third for ABC’s regional college football window last week.
Regional college football action featuring Western Michigan/Ohio State earned 3.7 million viewers on ABC last Saturday afternoon, up 31% from last year (2.84M) and up 34% from 2013 (2.78M), both of which also featured regional coverage. The rating was not immediately available.
The telecast, which also included ECU/Virginia Tech, drew an additional 579,000 viewers on ESPN2 — bringing the combined total to approximately 4.3 million. Head-to-head, it trailed Tennessee/Florida on CBS (4.6M) but comfortably topped TCU/Texas Tech on FOX (2.8M) and NBC’s Massachusetts/Notre Dame game (2.0M).
Ohio State has now given ABC a big boost in two consecutive weeks. Coverage in the same window the previous week, which featured Northern Illinois/Ohio State, increased by 60%.
Earlier in the day, BYU/Michigan had 3.0 million viewers in the Noon ET window. There was no comparable game last year. As previously reported, ABC’s UCLA/Arizona Saturday Night Football game had a record-low 1.6 rating and 2.4 million viewers.
(Wknd. numbers via Sports Business Daily)
