- Sixth Straight Saturday ABC or ESPN Won the Night
- ESPN, ESPN2 & ESPNU Televise Saturday’s Most-Viewed Games Across Cable
- ESPNU Posts its Highest Viewership for College Football
- ESPN, ABC & ESPNU Increases Over 2012
- Millions Go to ESPN Mobile Offerings
- Columbus & Seattle Top Markets for ABC & ESPN Saturday Night Games
The October 5 Saturday Night Football Presented by Windows telecast on ABC – Ohio State defeating Northwestern 40-30 – was the most-viewed non-NFL sporting event of the weekend. The telecast averaged 7,355,000 viewers and a 4.4 HH US rating, helping ABC to win the night among all networks in viewers and key male and adult demographics (18-34, 18-49 and 25-54). With this past weekend’s victory, an ABC or ESPN game telecast has helped the networks win the night in viewers and key demographics all six Saturdays of the 2013 season.
ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU’s combined eight game telecasts on Saturday, Oct. 5, were the most-viewed matchups across all cable networks for the day, highlighted by:
- The second game of ESPN’s Saturday night doubleheader – a 10:30 p.m. ET matchup seeing Stanford beat Washington 31-28 – was the most-viewed game among the three ESPN platforms, averaging 2,572,000 viewers and a 1.6 HH US rating.
- ESPNU posted its highest combined viewership for college football coverage, averaging 862,000 viewers for its three Saturday game telecasts.
In addition, ABC garnered a large audience for its Saturday afternoon coverage, averaging 4,423,000 viewers and a 2.9 HH US rating for a three-game split regional (Michigan over Minnesota 42-13, Clemson over Syracuse 49-14 and Oklahoma State over Kansas State 33-29)
Saturday Increases
ABC, ESPN and ESPNU’s 2013 college football coverage is generating larger audiences over last season, led by Saturday prime time increases for all three networks.
ABC Saturday Night Football is experiencing significant growth over last season, averaging 6,558,000 viewers and a 3.9 HH US rating, increases of 22 percent (vs. 5,381,000) and 18 percent (vs. 3.3), respectively, over 2012.
- ESPN’s Saturday night series is averaging 3,609,000 viewers and a 2.2 HH US rating this season, increases of 21 percent (vs. 2,991,000) and 16 percent (vs. 1.9), respectively.
- ESPNU’s Saturday game night telecasts are averaging 691,000 viewers and a 0.4 HH US rating, increases of 38 percent in viewers (vs. 501,000) and 33 percent in ratings (vs. 0.3) over last season.
In addition, ESPN’s weekly Thursday game has also generated larger audiences over 2012, averaging 2,632,000 viewers and a 1.7 HH US rating, increases of 13 percent (vs. 2,329,000) and 6 percent (vs. 1.6), respectively.
Top Four Metered Markets for ABC Saturday Night Football in Ohio
The top four metered markets for the ABC Saturday Night Football telecast were in the state of Ohio, led by Columbus with a 42.7 average rating. Dayton was second with a 24.0 followed by Cleveland (20.6), Cincinnati (11.0), Chicago (9.5), Detroit (7.9), Greenville (7.2), Birmingham (6.9), Richmond (6.3), Austin (5.6) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (5.6).
Seattle-Tacoma averaged a 14.2 rating for ESPN’s Washington at Stanford matchup, the highest-rated metered market for the game and the largest regular-season college football audience for an ESPN telecast in the market. Portland was second with a 7.1 rating followed by New Orleans (5.5), Birmingham (5.3), Oklahoma City (3.3), San Francisco (3.3), Salt Lake City (3.2), Greenville (2.7), Los Angeles (2.7) and Atlanta (2.6).
ESPN Digital Platforms Continue to Post Growth
ESPN Digital Media’s college football content across all platforms — ESPN.com homepage and college football section, the ESPN Mobile Web college football section, ESPNScoreCenter app’s the lead and college football card, WatchESPN/ESPN3 and the ESPN College Football app — continued significant growth in Week 6, generating an average audience of 256,000 on Saturday, an increase of 15 percent over 2012.
On Saturday, more than 6,600,000 fans accessed the ScoreCenter app with an average minute audience of more than 106,000 (up 12 percent and 81 percent over 2012, respectively). ESPN’s College Football app reached nearly 1,300,000 unique visitors with an average minute audience of more than 10,600 (up 29 percent and 13 percent over 2012, respectively).
Also on Saturday, video starts of college football content on ESPN.com totaled 3,800,000, up 47 percent over last year. Thursday through Saturday, WatchESPN and ESPN3 had more than 46,200,000 live minutes viewed, up 85 percent over 2012.
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