World Series Hits A Ratings Home Run For FOX
© F. Colin Kingston
An average of 39.1 million viewers tuned in to watch Game 7, making it the highest rated World Series in ten years. Baseball is far from reclaiming its status as "America's national past time," however. An estimated 89.5 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl last year. Even so, FOX is very pleased with the ratings during the first year of their multi-year exclusive contact for baseball's post season.
Trouble may be on the horizon, however. The contract between Major League Baseball and the MLB players union expired on November 7th. Baseball executives are also talking about disbanding two teams, thus meaning the loss of at least 50 major league jobs. The union is sure to fight it.
Baseball fans everywhere, including myself, hope that cooler heads prevail. The last thing baseball needs during a time of war is for billionaire owners to be arguing with millionaire players. The game still hasn't recovered from the labor stoppage of 1994. Another one now may kill it all together. I'd hate to see that happen.
News and notes from the world of television:
Emmy Awards Strike Out on CBS: The World Series threw what amounted to a high, hard one to the Emmy Awards. The Emmy's suffered their lowest ratings in years and came in as only the 17th highest rated series of the week. That isn't good for a program that is supposed to honor the best that television has to offer. Being postponed twice due to the terrorist attacks on September 11th and the start of our nation's bombing of Afghanistan certainly didn't help. For a complete listing of the Emmy winners check out http://www.emmys.com/
Ratings update: Here are the top ten rated shows for the week ending November 11th: 1) World Series Game 7 (FOX) 2) Friends (NBC) 3) ER (NBC) 4) World Series Game 4 (FOX) 5) World Series Game 3 (FOX) 6) CSI (CBS) 7) Friends (NBC) 8) World Series Game 5 (FOX) 9) Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS) 10) Will & Grace (NBC)
24 debuts on FOX: According to some critics," 24", the new action-adventure/spy series on FOX, is the best new show of the season. Each one-hour episode of the series literally takes place during one hour in the day of the life of a top-secret spy agency.
