ABC & ESPN Post Large Audiences for College Football Games Including Top Two in Prime Time
No. 5 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma & No. 11 Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama in Prime Time
ESPNU All-Access: Ole Miss Football on Tuesday
Recruiting: Georgia Matchup Showcasing Future Auburn and Alabama Players
All aboard: College GameDay going to Oklahoma for Top 10 ABC showdown
Photo Tour: Venture behind the scenes with College GameDay in Gainesville
Note: ESPN’s full men’s and women’s college basketball schedules will be announced this week – please check ESPNMediaZone.com for updates
ABC & ESPN Post Large Audiences for College Football Games Including Top Two in Prime Time
ABC and ESPN’s college football coverage continues to deliver large audiences, highlighted by the top two most-viewed games in prime time on Saturday Oct. 20. Overall for Saturday, ABC and ESPN combined to post four of the top five games out of the 20 nationally televised matchups across broadcast and cable networks (Note: a national rating for ABC’s Saturday noon broadcast, which averaged a 3.1 metered market, will not be available until Thursday so it was excluded from the calculation).
ABC’s Saturday Night Football Presented by Windows 8 – Baylor at Texas and Florida State at Miami – averaged 4,843,000 viewers on a 3.1 rating, making it the most-viewed game of the night and less than 60,000 viewers from the most-viewed telecast of the day (CBS’s South Carolina at Florida matchup averaged 4,900,000 viewers on a 3.1 rating).
ESPN’s prime time telecast of Alabama at Tennessee, the day’s second most-viewed night game, averaged 4,223,000 viewers on a 2.5 US rating (2.9 coverage rating).
- The game averaged a 41.7 metered market rating in Birmingham, the fifth highest-rated regular-season college football game on ESPN in the market. The other top markets: Knoxville (27.6 rating), Nashville (15.5 rating), Memphis (10.4 rating) and Atlanta (6.2 rating).
ESPN and ABC Saturday afternoon contests also averaged audiences over 4,000,000 viewers:
- ESPN’s LSU at Texas A&M Saturday noon telecast averaged 4,176,000 viewers on a 2.8 national rating (3.2 coverage rating). The top five metered markets for the telecast: New Orleans (18.7 rating), Birmingham (11.1 rating), Austin (10.3 rating), Knoxville (9.1 rating), Houston (6.9 rating) and San Antonio (6.9 rating).
- The ABC Saturday 3:30 p.m. regional broadcast – Nebraska at Northwestern, Texas Tech at TCU and South Florida at Louisville – averaged 4,009,000 viewers on a 2.6 rating.
No. 5 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma & No. 11 Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama in Prime Time
ESPN’s college football schedule this week will be highlighted by two Saturday night telecasts matching ranked teams with all four in the top 11 of the BCS standings:
- ABC will broadcast undefeated No. 5 Notre Dame at one-loss No. 8 Oklahoma as part of the Saturday Night Football series at 8 p.m. ET. Notre Dame has defeated Oklahoma eight of the nine all-time meetings against the Sooners, including the last meeting in 1999.
- ESPN will televise No. 11 Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama in a showdown of unbeaten SEC teams at 8:30 p.m. Mississippi State, at 7-0, has had its best start to a season since 1999 and won its first seven games for only the second time in 113 years of playing football. Alabama has won eight of the last 10 games against the Bulldogs.
Overall, ESPN platforms will offer coverage of seven of the remaining 11 undefeated teams: No. 1 Alabama, No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 11 Mississippi State, No. 15 Rutgers, No. 16 Louisville, No. 24 Ohio and Ohio State. Additional highlights:
- An ESPN Friday night matchup on October 26 will pit one-loss Cincinnati at undefeated BIG EAST foe No. 16 Louisville at 8 p.m.
- ESPN will televise unbeaten Ohio State at a Penn State squad that has won five straight since opening the season 0-2 on Saturday, Oct. 27, at 5:30 p.m.
- ESPN3 will provide coverage of Kent State, with a 6-1 record, at undefeated No. 15 Rutgers on Saturday, Oct. 27, at 3:30 p.m.
Join the ESPN college football conversation and follow on Twitter: @CollegeGameDay; @ESPNCFB; @CFBLive; @ESPNU
ESPNU All-Access: Ole Miss Football on Tuesday
ESPNU All-Access goes inside the hearts and minds of the Ole Miss football team Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m. ESPNU cameras shadow first-year head coach Hugh Freeze as he leads coaches through devotional and positional meetings. Viewers will also hear coaches wired at practice and follow along with Freeze as he conducts his weekly “class check” to ensure players are in attendance.
Recruiting: Georgia Matchup Showcasing Future Auburn and Alabama Players
ESPNU will showcase Georgia high school teams Milton at Walton on Friday, Oct. 26, at 9 p.m. as part of the ninth week of the ESPN GEICO High School Showcase. Both teams feature ESPN 150 players committed to SEC teams — Milton’s defensive end Carl Lawson is ranked No. 5 in the nation and committed to Auburn, while Walton’s running back Tyren Jones is ranked No. 76 and committed to Alabama.
Follow on Twitter: @ESPNU
All aboard: College GameDay going to Oklahoma for Top 10 ABC showdown
Photo Tour: Venture behind the scenes with College GameDay in Gainesville
Follow on Twitter: @CollegeGameDay
In addition to Saturday’s live coverage from Norman, Okla., ESPNU Road Trip will be truckin’ through campus and viewers can relive the action with hosts Niki Noto and Ali Nejad on Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 p.m. on ESPNU. Follow on Twitter: @ESPNU
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