The Phillies were one of the big local TV losers in the majors this year
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The Phillies were one of the big local TV losers in the majors this year
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
This probably won't come as a surprise to the plethora of folks who found themselves erring on the side of doing something else besides watching the Phillies this summer, but Comcast Sports Net's local ratings suffered one of the sharpest plunges in the majors according to a story in the Sports Business Daily. Last year, the Phillies boasted the top local ratings in the majors. This year, thanks to a horrendous start and a trading deadline sell-off, their 5.61 rating fell to seventh. The top five: Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Boston.
According to Nielsen, Phillies average audience was down 39.1 percent this year, with an average audience size of 168,000, although that still ranked fourth in the majors behind the Yankees, Mets and Tigers.
“The Phillies continue to provide strong ratings, but are off of their historic highs of the last couple of years,” Jon Litner, group president of NBC Sports Group, told the Sports Business Daily. “Ratings are up and down for our regionals. Overall, we have a few home runs and a few double plays.”
Do something about it Dave Montgomery and friends!!!!!!!!!— shawnmac- I'm sure all the local tv stations are adding this page to their favorites list for when those tv contract talks start.Not news the owners or i want to hear.The owners of course for the $$$ and i'm thinking of free agents,the farm system,ticket prices and everything else baseball related.Geesh,is this bad timing or what?— Mon
- .500 just doesn't do it. Can't see improvement either with the albatross of the large contracts.— Servo
- Sam Perlozza will have plenty of free time next season to watch, it appears. SO that was the problem. Isn't he Gomer's drinking buddy?— Wilhelm Von Humboldt
- The drop in TV ratings no doubt is largely because the team played poorly, but TMac and Wheels are not very good. I saw that the average TV audience was 168,000 a game this year; how can that be acceptable?! Get some interesting, professional announcers -- or just move the radio guys over! They were always entertaining, even when the losses were piling up. The Phillies need changes from top to bottom and into the TV broadcast booth. I hope for better things in 2013!— PeterG
- When we play the Nats I always llike watching the game on MASN as the announcers are informative and on the ball.— terrycindyian
- I regularly watch the broadcasts of whomever the Phillies are playing. That or I listen Scott Franzke & Larry Anderson on the radio while I watch the game on TV with the sound down. — PhightinPhil
- 150,000+ viewers? That's all?
That is a disgrace and it's deserving.
Objective announcers like Whitey and Anderson who call(ed) out unmotivated, lethargic players (like Rollins) is what good TV needs!— GeogProf - This team was boring! Even when they won they were boring and it was obvious they did not have the ability to compete with the Braves and Nats. What sports need to understand is that there is a lot of competing venues for entertainment. TV has improved a ton in the past 10 years. Netflix makes a movie available every night. If you suck and are uninteresting, there are so many other options. I probably watched more 76ers games this year than Phillies games. And - Charlie's coming back so 2013 doesn't light my fire either.— bmcw
- What a surprise! People actually want to see quality on TV.— LI PhilPhan
- The 2012 team was not exciting and pretty dreadful to watch most of the season.— BobbyD
- Missing the big name stars (Utley, Howard, Halladay) for a huge chunk of the season and falling so far out of the race so early will do that to TV Ratings. 2012 was a steaming pile of a season from the very beginning.— phink
- The drop Comcast has experienced isn't because of the quality of baseball , although that had something to do with it. It wasn't the announcers or the manager, as the disgruntled few seized to jump on, it was the loss of customers to the Dish. Comcast has been overcharging people for years to watch TV. with little to no competition. Now there is competition, and they're fighting to overcome it. To further add to the misery, is the idiocy perpetrated in Washington robing the citizens of jobs.
As we can see, change isn't always the best .— phineas - It is a football town, plain and simple.— Ed Gein
