In the penultimate season of IndyCar’s current television deals, ratings and viewership slipped on ABC.
ABC averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.3 million viewers for five IndyCar Series races this season, a figure that includes the Indy 500 — down a tick in ratings and 8% in viewership from last year (1.6, 2.5M) and flat and down 2% respectively from 2015 (1.5, 2.4M).
Excluding the Indy 500, ABC’s average viewership (995K) was down a steeper 16% from last year (1.2M) but up 2% from 2015 (972K).
Last weekend’s Dual in Detroit posted steep declines. Race 1 had a 0.6 and 847,000 last Saturday, down a tick in ratings and 16% in viewership from last year (0.7, 1.0M) but flat and up a fraction of a percent respectively from 2015 (0.6, 845K).
Race 2 had a 0.6 and 918,000 on Sunday, down a third in ratings and 34% in viewership from last year (0.9, 1.4M) and down 25% and 21% respectively from 2015 (0.8, 1.2M).
[Season avg. from ESPN; last weekend numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 6.6]
