NEW YORK – The XFL hit a new low for prime-time
programming.
The national rating for the league's Week 7 broadcast on joint
owner NBC was a 1.6, believed to be the lowest prime-time night
among the big three networks in Nielsen Media Research history.
It's also well below the worst-previous evening sports broadcast
on NBC, ABC or CBS. That dubious distinction had been held by Game
3 of last season's Stanley Cup finals, which drew a 2.3 on ABC on
June 3.
Researchers could find only one other single prime-time program
to match the XFL's showing – an ABC News special on drug policy
that aired on Aug. 30, 1997, also scoring a 1.6.
"We have enough games and ratings under our belts to say that
it's not working in prime time, and in my judgment NBC is going to
have to move it off Saturday night next year," Neal Pilson, former
CBS Sports president and now a consultant, said Tuesday.
"NBC's prime-time network people will insist that it be
moved."
NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker said Tuesday that he
didn't expect the plug to be pulled on the XFL before the season,
which has five more games, is complete. Zucker wouldn't comment on
its status beyond this year; NBC has planned to bring it back next
year.
The XFL's Saturday night ratings on NBC have been plummeting
since the debut earned a 9.5 rating, falling steadily until Week 5
and Week 6 both drew 2.4.
"This is no surprise," NBC Sports vice president Kevin
Sullivan said of the latest slip in viewership, noting that the XFL
is now facing three straight Saturdays of competition from the NCAA
men's basketball tournament on CBS.
Seven weeks into a 12-week schedule, the XFL is averaging a 3.9
rating from 8-11 p.m. ET on NBC, a number that was boosted by a
curiosity factor in Week 1. The fledgling football league's games
are also airing on UPN (averaging a 1.6 rating) and TNN (0.9).
The three-network combined average rating of 6.4 is more than 30
percent below what the league guaranteed advertisers, who already
have been given extra commercials for free.
Ratings are the percentage of U.S. television homes tuning in.
NBC Sports noted it has a two-year commitment with the World
Wrestling Federation to split startup costs of about $50 million.
But ratings of the XFL's nature would spell doom for any other
prime-time TV series.
"If you look at the XFL as a failed network series, then writing
off part of the money is a possibility. They certainly have written
off failed network programming before," Pilson said.
The league, the brainchild of WWF impresario Vince McMahon, will
try to stem the slipping ratings with new TV, radio and print
promotion.
"Beginning this week you will see an aggressive advertising
campaign in which the league will be talking about reasons people
should tune in to watch," XFL spokesman Jeff Shapes said Tuesday.
A rating point represents 1,022,000 households, or 1 percent of
the nation's estimated 102.2 million TV homes. The share is the
percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories |
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