Plus Pages

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Sunday Ratings: ACMs Tumble 18-49, Baseball Strong For ESPN


CBS’ Academy of Country Music Awards easily beat broadcast competitors Sunday night, but hit a record low in the key 18-49 demographic (2.1), and suffered its smallest total-viewer tally since 2007. In the demo, ACM Awards tumbled 9% compared to last year’s 2.3, and 42% compared to two years ago (3.6).

Deadline reports that in total viewers, ACM Awards logged 10.9M viewers, sliding just 3% compared to last year’s 11.2M, but 32% (aka 5M viewers) compared to ’15’s 16M.

Nonetheless, CBS’s broadcast of the 52nd annual ACM Awards controlled the night among broadcasters in its  8-11 PM airing. The trophy show peaked at 9 PM with a 2.3 rating and 11.703M viewers.

ACM had snagged higher-than-usual numbers two years ago, celebrating its 50th anniversary, though the boost seems to have been offset with record lows of ’16 and ’17.

Leading in to the music special, CBS’s 60 Minutes won the 7 PM hour in the demo (1.1) and in overall audience (9.328M).


Meanwhile, ESPN’s first game of the new baseball season Sunday night was in midseason form ratings-wise. The network’s coverage of the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs vs the St. Louis Cardinals was watched by 3.62 million viewers, up 25% over last year’s game. Its 2.3 overnight rating in the metered markets was up 10% over last year’s opener to make it ESPN’s highest-rated opening night telecast since 2010.

The network said that it was ESPN’s most-watched opening-night game ever with an average total live audience (TV + streaming) of 3.707M viewers, up 26% over last year’s Royals-Mets World Series rematch.

The game’s livestream generated 20,457,000 total minutes and 321,000 unique viewers, up 94% and 59%, respectively, over last year.

No comments:

Post a Comment