College Football on TV: Ratings Battle between Florida State and TCU
by EG
Saturday night is the domain of college football on network TV, and again this past weekend, prime-time football games were the ratings champions. Compared to weeks past, however, the audiences for this weeks games were on the small side.
ABC continued to get the higher-quality match-up, this week scheduling a game between then-number-12 Florida State and the University of Miami. That game drew 3.3 million total viewers and earned a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 age deomographic.That was good enough to win the night, but it was well behind the 7.2 million viewers who tuned into the Notre Dame/Clemson game last week.
This week's second-place game was on Fox, where then-number-2 TCU took on Kansas State. Despite the presence of a top-five team in that contest, the game drew only 2.7 million total viewers and earned a .8 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
It's worth noting that although a rerun of Code Black on CBS in the 8 pm slot only achieved a .4 rating the 18-49 group, it drew a bigger audience in terms of total viewers than did the Fox football game. The numbers indicate a rare, albeit slight, weak spot in the dominance of NCAA football on Saturday night.