Ratings: BTN, SEC on CBS, “Big Noon,” Figure Skating

Last Friday’s Ohio State-Northwestern college football game averaged 1.64 million viewers on Big Ten Network, the channel’s fourth-largest audience on record. This is the first year that BTN has been rated nationally (it was previously rated only in 12 Big Ten markets), making it unclear what other games could have possibly done better.

The Buckeyes’ win, which peaked with 2.19 million viewers, was originally scheduled to air on FS1. It was rescheduled for BTN to accommodate a baseball playoff game.

Head-to-head, it topped ESPN’s competing Pittsburgh-Syracuse game by 50% (1.09M).

LSU-Mississippi State averaged a 2.4 rating and 3.86 million viewers on the SEC on CBS last weekend, down 8% in ratings and 10% in viewership from last year (2.6, 4.31M) and down 14% and 13% respectively from 2017 (2.8, 4.45M), both of which were Tennessee-Alabama games.

For the second straight week, CBS did not air the most-watched SEC game of the weekend. It trailed ESPN’s Tennessee-Alabama game (4.25M).

FOX averaged a 1.7 rating and 2.54 million viewers for West Virginia-Oklahoma in its Big Noon Saturday window, the network’s lowest rated and least-watched Noon ET game since week one (FAU-Ohio State: 1.6, 2.62M).

The Sooners’ win declined 50% in ratings and 53% in viewership from Michigan-Michigan State last year (3.4, 5.42M), but jumped 70% in both measures from 2017 (Maryland-Wisconsin: 1.0, 1.50M).

Later in the day, Baylor-Oklahoma State had a 1.4 (-30%) and 2.23 million (-30%). FS1 chipped in a mere 0.23 (-51%) and 343,000 (-56%) for its lone game of last weekend, Iowa State-Texas Tech.

Taped coverage of Skate America, part of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating, averaged 820,000 viewers on NBC Sunday afternoon — up 15% from last year (707K). Live coverage on NBCSN last Saturday night had 184,000.