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Thursday, January 09, 2003

You tuned them out. Then you came back, bringing some friends with you. You fair-weather clickers, you. The Browns-Steelers broadcast Sunday on KDKA-TV earned a 50.3 overall rating, the percentage of market televisions tuned into the game. It also registered a gaudy 71 share, the percentage of TVs turned on and tuned into the game. Both were the highest numbers by an NFL market this past weekend. But check out what happened in the second half of the game ...

At the quarter-hour ending at 2:45 p.m., the Nielsen meters recorded an audience rating of 52.35. An hour later, about the time the Browns surged to a double-digit lead, the rating drooped to 49.84. Then it climbed for the following half hour, back to nearly the previous high, at 52.27.

In layman's terms, that means about 27,000 Pittsburgh households bailed out and then joined the comeback in progress.

Where were ya, people? We missed ya.

Finally, by game's end, the rating grew further still, to a 53.81. Which means that another 17,000 Pittsburgh households flipped over to the CBS broadcast and enjoyed the rally in a 36-33 Steelers win.

That equates to more than two-thirds of Heinz Field's capacity rushing back to the TV broadcast. It almost makes you more guilty of jumping off the bandwagon than the less than one-third of Heinz Field's capacity that left its seats late in the fourth quarter.

Not to be critical.

More football

The Steelers get the TV shaft, playing on the sixth day after their wild-card game rather than the Jets' eighth day, in part because the importance of grabbing that Noo Yawk and, ergo, national market for the more-watched time slot early Sunday evening. Pittsburgh-Tennessee just doesn't have the same TV juice as Jets-Oakland. The league could've placed the Jets instead in the Saturday early-evening window, giving them and the Steelers an equitable seven-day break between games -- even if the Noo Yawkers had to fly across two more zones than the Steelers. Whatever happened to teams leaving early and practicing a few days on the opponent's coast?

ESPN signed Jim Rome to resume his TV show -- on the network where Jim "Chris" Everett all began -- and launches its Bill Walton reality-show Feb. 2, which is along the lines of the Osbournes and Anna Nicole Smith.

ABC starts up its NHL broadcasts Saturday and aims to announce the All-Star starters between periods, most likely leading with Penguins owner-player Mario Lemieux.

Fox Sports Net's "Chasing the Dream" series, following the Baby Penguins of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, makes its debut at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Steelers' Super Bowl highlights on ESPN Classic can serve as your pregame warmup Saturday between 2:30-4:30 p.m. as part of the channel's salute to Pittsburgh.

Falling ratings

December's 1.86 rating for Penguins games marked a four-year low for the local Fox Sports Net affiliate. It constituted a 41 percent decrease (equal to roughly 11,000 fewer households) from the previous December and continued a decline from this season's start, with the Penguins averaging a 2.65 rating for each October game and a 2.42 for November. Thus far in January, the Penguins drew a 1.63 Friday (opposite the Fiesta Bowl national championship), a .91 Saturday (opposite Falcons-Packers) and a 1.3 Tuesday -- for a 1.25 average.

"We've got our fingers crossed that it'll pick up soon," said Larry Eldridge, the boss at the cable channel. The team's horrendous end to 2001-02, its 10-game slide in December, its constant injury problems plus a Steelers-focused audience might have contributed to a ratings slip that even has Penguins officials concerned. They met last month with Fox Sports Net types to try to stimulate viewership, which explains the signs on buses, radio promotions and other marketing pushes. "And we're continuing to look at some new ideas to rekindle interest and attract additional eyeballs," Eldridge said.