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US broadcast giant ESPN’s viewership has suffered a major blow in the absence of live sports during the coronavirus pandemic.
With the major US networks having to adapt programming schedules, the Disney-owned sports broadcaster has seen its ratings drop by less than 50 per cent against figures from 12th and 25th March last year, SportsPro has learnt.
With large swathes of major league sports postponing games in recent weeks, the absence of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the cancellation of the March Madness college basketball tournament will have contributed to the network’s overall drop in viewership.
Whilst ESPN has broadened its output of original programming during the Covid-19-enforced shutdown, including the brief return of the novelty channel ESPN8 ‘The Ocho’, ratings for specific shows or days during this period have not been made available.
Fellow US broadcaster NBC has been more open about the hit taken by its Golf Channel in recent weeks. Without live golf to fill the schedules, the network has seen unique viewership fall by 39 per cent from 5.23 million in the week beginning 9th March to 3.19 million the following week. By way of comparison, the same week last year recorded 5.25 million unique viewers.
NBC and the Golf Channel were due to air the Players Championship in Florida between 12th and 15th March, but that tournament was cut short and a host of other PGA Tour events have since been cancelled.
Last year, the Golf Channel’s Friday session coverage of the Players Championship drew close to one million viewers.
‘While television viewership has shifted with the lack of live sports, we have also found that golf fans are gravitating to our highest-quality storytelling and reporting across our linear and digital platforms,’ the Golf Channel said in a statement to SportsPro.
‘We are fortunate to have a deep archive of compelling golf content, returning to some of golf’s greatest moments in the professional game as well as instructional content as a resource for golfers at home.’
US broadcast giant ESPN’s viewership has suffered a major blow in the absence of live sports during the coronavirus pandemic.
With the major US networks having to adapt programming schedules, the Disney-owned sports broadcaster has seen its ratings drop by less than 50 per cent against figures from 12th and 25th March last year, SportsPro has learnt.
With large swathes of major league sports postponing games in recent weeks, the absence of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the cancellation of March Madness college basketball tournament will have contributed to the network’s overall drop in viewership.
Whilst ESPN has broadened its output of original programming during the Covid-19-enforced shutdown, including the brief return of the novelty channel ESPN8 ‘The Ocho’, ratings for specific shows or days during this period have not been made available.
Fellow US broadcaster NBC has been more open about the hit taken by its Golf Channel in recent weeks. Without live golf to fill the schedules, the network has seen unique viewership fall by 39 per cent from 5.23 million in the week beginning 9th March to 3.19 million the following week. By way of comparison, the same week last year recorded 5.25 million unique viewers.
Among the PGA Tour’s impacted events, NBC and the Golf Channel were due to air the Players Championship in Florida between 12th and 15th March, which was subsequently cut short along with a host of other tour events.
Last year, the Golf Channel’s Friday session coverage of the Players Championship drew close to one million viewers.
‘While television viewership has shifted with the lack of live sports, we have also found that golf fans are gravitating to our highest-quality storytelling and reporting across our linear and digital platforms,’ the Golf Channel told SportsPro.
‘We are fortunate to have a deep archive of compelling golf content, returning to some of golf’s greatest moments in the professional game as well as instructional content as a resource for golfers at home.’
