How Hurricanes’ local NCAA ratings stack up. And changes brewing in local media
What happens to TV ratings when you have a Final Four with only one blue blood?
The ratings dip, and pretty dramatically. And that shows why TV networks prefer that more established teams make the Final Four.
The 7.8 rating for Monday’s UConn-San Diego State NCAA men’s Final on CBS made it the lowest-rated for that game in history. The 14.7 million viewers also were an all-time low for the game.
The Villanova-Michigan 2018 Final on TBS was the only previous NCAA Finals game — before Monday — that drew fewer than 17 million viewers.
Part of the decline is a byproduct of over-the-air network TV ratings dropping for most programming, with the NFL a glaring exception. Part of it is likely the result of lack of a traditional power to oppose Connecticut in the title game.
On the positive side, the championship game narrowly beat ABC’s ratings for the Celtics-Warriors NBA Finals last June, including the Warriors’ close-out win in Game 6, which drew 14 million viewers.
And UConn-San Diego State easily topped the 9.9 million viewers for Game 7 of the Celtics-Heat Eastern Conference finals on a Sunday night on ESPN last June.
The San Diego State-FAU and UM-Connecticut national semifinal games averaged 12.3 million viewers on CBS, down 17 percent from last year on Turner. But the Owls-Aztecs game was up 2 percent over the Kansas-Villanova semifinal on TBS the previous year.
The problem was that Miami-UConn drew an audience (12.8 million viewers) that was 27 percent less than traditional powers North Carolina and Duke drew in their national semifinal last year.
CBS-4’s 7.12 rating for Miami-UConn — equaling 7.12 percent of Dade-Broward homes with TV sets — wasn’t awful but wasn’t great, either. As perspective, 12 percent of Dade/Broward homes watched Game 7 of the Heat-Celtics Eastern finals.
Dolphins games typically draw in the 10 to 13 range.
FYI: The LSU-Iowa women’s final — televised on free network TV (ABC) for the first time in many years — drew 9.9 million viewers, a record for the women’s final and equal to the national cable audience for Game 7 of the Heat-Celtics Eastern finals.
MEDIA NOTES
▪ Don’t be surprised if CBS-4’s Jim Berry, the market’s longest-tenured sportscaster, continues doing more and more news and less and less sports. Berry could leave the sports department altogether in the coming weeks or months, but he and WFOR news director Kerri Kavanaugh declined to discuss the issue this week.
Berry has been co-anchoring the station’s 5:30 p.m. newscast while continuing to do sports anchoring.
If Berry leaves sports, No. 2 sportscaster Mike Cugno seems positioned to become the station’s lead sportscaster.
CBS-4 this week added Samantha Rivera, who had been working at the NBC affiliate in Chicago. Rivera also has worked at Telemundo Chicago. She comes to the department as No. 3 in the sports on-air hierarchy, but could move to No. 2 if Berry moves exclusively to news.
Trish Christakis — a reporter at CBS-4 — has been contributing to sports and anchored the station’s 11 p.m sportscast on Tuesday but is primarily working in news.
Steve Goldstein, Bally’s Panthers play-by-play announcer and CBS-4’s Dolphins preseason announcer, also contributes when available. Goldstein has routinely been joining Cugno on the station’s Sunday night sports show, “Sports Desk.” Berry stopped doing the Sunday night program last year.
Meanwhile, NBC-6 is now entering its second month without a full time sportscaster. The station continues searching for one.
▪ The Heat appears likely to play in the 7-8 Eastern Conference play-in game next week, and TNT will have exclusive coverage of that game at 7 or 7:30 on Tuesday.
TNT also has exclusivity for Heat-76ers on Thursday, with Brian Anderson and Stan Van Gundy on the call.
▪ Marlins ratings on Bally Sports were up 19 percent for the opening weekend series over a year ago.
▪ Here was Jim Nantz’s goodbye to NCAA Tournament play-by-play after 32 years calling the Final Four. Nantz handled it appropriately and, as usual, with a measured tone; he never puts himself above the event he’s covering.
He will continue to call NFL and golf (including this week’s Masters) for CBS.
▪ Good hires: Jay Wright, who enhanced CBS’ NCAA Tournament coverage and Rod Allen, who has been an asset in his second year of Marlins broadcasts. Allen makes sound points, including questioning Tanner Scott’s reluctance to use his fastball enough in the opener. Wright spent time with the Heat coaching staff in Philadelphia on Wednesday night.
▪ J.P. Arencibia, dropped by the Marlins and Bally Sports after last season, is now the bench coach for the Triple A Syracuse Mets.
▪ This is neat: For the April 14 Marlins-Arizona game, Bally will offering two presentations — a traditional one on Bally Sports Florida (with Paul Severino and Tommy Hutton announcing) and a nontraditional one, with Jessica Blaylock, Allen and Jeremy Tache.
That secondary broadcast — which will be available on the Bally Sports App and Ballysports.com — will allow viewers to interact on social media and will feature a discussion of advanced analytics and metrics, with MLB’s Sarah Langs among the guests.
▪ Diamond Sports, the parent company of the Bally Sports regionals and now in bankruptcy court, missed its rights fee payments to the Cleveland Guardians, Arizona Diamondbacks and Minnesota Twins. As we’ve reported, Diamond hasn’t missed any payments to the Marlins.
▪ The NFL and RedBird Capital, a private equity firm, will stream NFL games in bars and restaurants this year….
NFL Sunday Ticket is moving from DirecTV to YouTube TV, and DirecTV’s version of Red Zone channel (anchored by Andrew Siciliano) will no longer exist. There will be one RedZone channel — not two — moving forward, with Scott Hanson hosting.
