Four In A Row For ‘MNF’
With Jets-Chargers, ESPN Now Has Cable’s Four Largest Audiences In 2008
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 9/23/2008 12:51:00 PM
For ESPN, it was all about fours last night, and we’re not necessarily talking about the number New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre wears.
With its fourth game of the 2008 National Football League season, ESPN’s Monday Night Football package has now produced the four largest cable audiences of 2008. Moreover, each of the four games the total sports network has aired this season has surpassed its counterpart from the 2007 campaign.
The Sept. 22 matchup in which the Jets were crushed 48-29 by the San Diego Chargers tackled an 8.9 household rating, 8.6 million homes and 11.9 million viewers, making the game the third largest audience in cable this year, according to Nielsen Media Research data. That was up 3.5%, 3.6% and 10.2% from the 8.6 rating, 8.3 million households and 10.8 million viewers who watched the Tennessee Titans-New Orleans Saints contest a year ago.
Last night’s contest made ESPN the top network, broadcast or cable, for the third straight Monday among key male demos, according to ESPN officials.
For the season to date, MNF has averaged a 9.8 rating, 9.55 million households and 13.3 million watchers, gains of 18% (8.3 rating), 19% (7.99 million homes) and 27% (10.5 million), respectively, over the four-game averages through the same stage of the 2007 MNF schedule.
ESPN’s results have been fueled by cable’s biggest live audience ever, the Sept. 15 Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game that scored with an average of 18.6 million viewers. When live + seven-day data is calculated next week, that game may or may not surpass Disney Channel’s presentation of original telefilm High School Musical2 as the most-watched show in cable history on that metric. The Aug. 17, 2007 premiere of Disney Channel’s original telefilm notched 17.2 million viewers, but added another 1.4 million-plus, gauged on a live+ seven-day basis.
ESPN's presentation of the “game around the game” for Chargers-Jets, which included NFL studio programming starting at 3:30 p.m. through the conclusion of NFL Primetime at 2:30 a.m. (ET), delivered an18.6 gross household coverage rating for its MNF coverage.
Online, NFL content on ESPN.com, including “Monday Night Surround,” accessed via computers and mobile devices, generated more than 11.2 million visits and 84.5 million page views – an increase of 58% from the same week last year – from Monday through Tuesday at noon. For the season to date, ESPN.com has averaged 88 million page views, up 53% from 2007.
