Tiger’s Tale Helps Golf To Best-Ever PGA Ratings
Channel Holes 2.0 Average With Third-Round Coverage Of WGC Accenture Match Play Event
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/25/2008 3:32:00 AM
Tiger Woods’s climb through the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship helped push Golf Channel to its best-ever ratings performance.
The network holed a 2.0 household rating for its coverage on Friday Feb. 22, drawing a total of 1.76 million viewers on average, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
Golf Channel said the results reflected its '2-Play' combination of live audience numbers from its 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. premiere presentation, with encore primetime viewership figures. Network officials note that typically 92% of its primetime replay audience is unduplicated, meaning the service reaches virtually new slate of viewers at night.
As part of its coverage on Friday, Woods, the world’s top player, beat Aaron Baddeley over 20 holes. Woods went on to win the event Sunday, demolishing Stuart Cink, marking his third WGC Accenture Match Play triumph.
Golf officials said that only Friday coverage at the Masters and the PGA Championship – two of golf’s major championships – had a higher cable rating in the past two years.
On Thursday, Golf, in its second year with the event, sank a 1.7 household average over the same time period, making it the highest-rated second day in the history of the tournament, which in previous years had aired on ESPN. The 1.7 total on Feb. 21 equaled Golf’s previous best-ever ratings averages , which were achieved with its Friday coverage of the 2007 WGC Accenture Match Play Championship and its Friday afternoon presentation from Tour Championship last September.
Last Wednesday, Golf’s 1.3 ratings score from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. was the highest-rated first day in the history of the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship.
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