ESPN's Week Two MNF Game No Longer Most Watched Cable Show
Monday, October 13, 2008
ESPN officially held the top spot for just about a month, but unfortunately for the "Leader" another look at the data showed that their September 15th matchup between the Eagles and Cowboys did not actually top High School Musical 2 as previously reported. Via Multichannel News....
The Aug. 17, 2007 premiere of HSM2 drew a then-cable record 17.241 million viewers on a live + same-day basis, according to Nielsen Media Research data, a total that was first surpassed by the Dec. 3, 2007 MNF game between the then-undefeated New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens, which garnered 17.522 million watchers. However, when calculated on a live + seven-day basis, HSM2 added 1.398 million viewers to finish with 18.639 million watchers.Man, just two thousand people more and they would have had it. Again, I don't think Disney is shedding a tear today, but ESPN itself has to be a tad bit upset about losing the title of "Most Watched Cable Program". They've still got some good games left on the slate, and while it's unlikely any of those will get back to the numbers of Philly and Dallas, you never know.
Gauged on a live + same-day way, last month’s Dallas-Eagles game scored with 18.608 million live+ same-day watchers. Hence, it needed more than 31,000 viewers on a live + seven-day count to topple HSM2. Instead, it tallied 29,000 to come up just short at 18.637 million.
Presumably in a show of synergistic silence, spokesfolk for ESPN and Disney Channel both declined to comment on the sibling-network competition.
Cable’s All-Time, Most-Watched Show: 'HSM2' Edges 'MNF' (Multichannel News)
Eagles-Cowboys MNF Game Was The Most Watched Program In Cable Television History (Awful Announcing)
4 Comments:
I'll never understand the fascination with 'High School Musical.'
So many young girls obsess over them like they are gods.
Ironically, this game was broadcast when millions of Ohioans were without power (some up to a week). I wonder if we could have been the swing state on this very important contest, too.
This is interesting news, but not a fair comparison. The reason is that movies and sports events are different in which the sportscasts are shown only once in most cases and movies can air throughout the week.
I still consider the football game the most popular cable/satellite show of all time, because I define it as most people watching at the same time.
Forget High School Musical ratings... it's time to start some Kornheiser bashing. ESPN needs to retool the booth bigtime and knock off the cross promoting of their crappy shows and products.