Monday Night Mastery
ESPN, Football Set a Basic-Cable Viewership Benchmark
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 10/29/2006 7:00:00 PM
In the end, Tiki Barber, Terrell Owens and Bill Parcells tackled Al Gore, Ross Perot and Larry King.
After coming come close on a couple of other occasions, ESPN's Monday Night Football juggernaut finally reached the top of basic-cable viewership, scoring the largest audience in the medium's history on Oct. 23, when the New York Giants 36-22 victory over the Dallas Cowboys scored with 11.8 million households.
That performance eclipsed the record held by the North American Free Trade Agreement debate between then Vice President Al Gore and Perot that aired on CNN's Larry King Live on Nov. 9, 1993.
“We've never believed the acronyms NAFTA and MNF belonged in the same sentence, and we're thrilled to have established MNF as the home of cable's biggest audience ever,” said Norby Williamson, ESPN's executive vice president of studio and remote production, in a statement.
In addition, ESPN officials said the MNF contest surpassed the household audiences drawn by a quartet of CNN breaking-news programs surrounding the Gulf War — led by Jan. 17, 1991 coverage from 8 to 9 p.m. that garnered 11.7 million households — that were higher than the NAFTA debate.
The record-setting total on Oct. 23 built from a household cable rating of 12.8, which translated into over 16 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
ESPN officials said MNF made the network the most-viewed channel in primetime — including broadcast — that night, as well as in such key demos as adults and men 18 to 34, 18 to 49 and 25 to 54.
Among regularly scheduled programs, ESPN's MNF now claims seven of the top eight spots in basic-cable history.
The total sports network pays $1.1 billion in annual rights fees to show National Football League Games on Monday nights, where it previously paid $600 million to show pro football on Sunday night.
But ESPN has registered major gains with eight games over the season's first seven weeks, versus seven games a year ago: a 10.8 cable household rating, up 50% from 7.2 last season; 9.96 million homes, ahead 53% from 6.5 million; and 13.5 million viewers, 52% more than the 8.88 million in the 2005 campaign.
Those numbers have also made Ed Erhardt, president of ESPN/ABC Sports customer marketing and sales, a happy man: Executives in the advertising community said ESPN sold MNF with a cable household guarantee in the 8.5 to 8.7 range
While Erhardt declined to address guarantees, he did acknowledge that MNF's performance has freed up inventory the network — ESPN has a total of 43 in-game commercials per contest — had put aside for make goods against potential under-delivery.
“We're virtually sold out for the rest of the season,” he said, declining to discuss unit pricing. “As the ratings have built, we've been able to use that inventory judiciously and strategically week to week to build other packages with clients.”
Erhardt said the MNF units have helped ESPN strike client deals across various multimedia platforms, including commercials in the total sports network's SportsCenter, ESPN2's Mike and Mike In the Morning, National Basketball Association and college-football properties.
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