Television Ratings

[macdaddy]

Last week's Grand Prix Americas continued the year-long trend of increasing Nielsen ratings in the races shown on CBS, drawing the season's highest ratings as 1.45 million households tuned in to see Mario Dominguez take his second career victory.

(Miami) drew a final rating of 1.3. The last three CBS races have drawn over 1.2 million households with ratings climbing to 1.3. The audience for CART Champ Car events on CBS has more than doubled from the beginning of the season.

CBS has already committed to a return to the series for next season, announcing that it will carry as many as 10 races in 2004. The remaining three races of the 2003 season are slated to be broadcast on SPEED Channel.

[sgw2]

macdaddy,

The same bizzarre surge happened for CART last year (1.6 rating) at Miami. The reason was an NFL game on the same channel. This only represents a scatterring of Football fans who had their TV on early waiting for the game.

Even so the sub 2.0 rating continues the ugly OW numbers we have gotten used to over the last three years.

REALITY CHECK:

NASCAR meanwhile got a 4.7 for Talladega on NBC, with no NFL game to boost the ratings.

[paul-collins]

Is this a surge? They had a 1.2 at Toronto, since then they've been to Vancouver, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Montreal and Denver. How many were on Speed (discounting Road America, which was that HDTV thing)?

I guess we can be glad we don't have the IRL's ratings:
August 17 - 0.8
September 7 - 0.8
September 21 - 0.6

OW should be in the low to mid 2s, though, I'll grant you that.

[varsitypride3]

Sounds great... maybe some football fans will like what they see and come back. It WAS an awesome race to see. Hopefully CBS will realize that.

I also wonder how ABC feels about their IRL deal now.

[The Snout]

The NFL boost is just a theory, no concrete evidence, plenty of opinion though.

[Jay]

sgw2, I hear the Olympics got an even higher rating, Cart must be dead...lol

Football or not, it's a solid rating which shows growth - which is what the sponsors like to see. Good way to end the network races.

[Liz]

Oh, and I'm sure "Survivor: Eating Beetles in the Pigpen" got a 7.9 rating too -- which means NA$$CAR is dead.

Can we NEVER have good news without somebody in our Cheerios?

[corkholio]

A 1.3 is not bad if you are a fanatic. Trouble is that most sponsors aren't.

[f1manoz]

Having 1.2 million households is better than having none at all. And consider that CART is shown overseas in a variety of countries – all over Europe, in Australia etc.

If the product continues to flourish and expand, Nielsen ratings will continue to grow as more people tune into watch.

And it’s still better than the IRL statistics…

[The Snout]

A 1.3 isn't the holy grail. But I've seen worse recently.

[Dov]

From Cart-Racing.com:

Last weekend’s Grand Prix Americas continued the year-long trend of increasing Nielsen ratings in the races shown on CBS, drawing the season´s highest ratings as 1.45 million households tuned in to see Mario Dominguez take his second career victory.

Seen live in 85 markets and tape-delayed in the rest of the country, the 16th round of the championship season drew a final rating of 1.3. The last three CBS races have drawn over 1.2 million households with ratings climbing to 1.3. The audience for CART Champ Car events on CBS has more than doubled from the beginning of the season.

"These ratings continue to reward our confidence in CBS and theirs in our series," said CART President and CEO Chris Pook. "We are all looking forward to continuing our partnership in the coming years and intend to maximize the potential of the relationship."

CBS has already committed to a return to the series for next season, announcing that it will carry as many as 10 races in 2004. The remaining three races of the 2003 season, which will feature the chase for the Vanderbilt Cup, are slated to be broadcast on SPEED Channel.Sorry, Macdaddy...it's looks like I just posted the same article as yours.

[Flatspot]

I'm curious about where C^RT's ratings were at their peak excluding the Indy 500. Anybody know? Has this been answered 1000 times and I'm just thick?

[Snrub]

The ratings are good news considering the doom and gloom about CART. Indy was 4.6 this year. So essentially it's not quiet 3x the television significance of a current CART race and less significant than a Nascar race. Factor in the crowds and I need someone to explain to me why all the money went to the IRL?!?

[BootsOntheSide]

The scale is pretty clear. The Indy 500 gets ratigns which compare well to most NASCAR events. CART gets a tiny fraction of that (how similar are CART's ratings to those for F1, or the Busch Series?), but at least 50% more than ordinary IRL events. Attendances show similar outcomes, with the worst CART attendances matchign the best IRL ones outside teh 500.

The Indy 500 is the main reason for the IRL's influx of teams, drivers and sponsors, although CART's run of poor decisions and bad luck didn't help, neither did the increase in overseas drivers in the late 90s.

1.3 is a good start to develop on, especially as it has better worldwide figures than any other NA-based series. I'll get lynched for saying this here, but I kinda wish teh IRL figures were better - people are missing some great racing between some great drivers.

[Liz]

It is well to remember that "the ratings" measure only United States viewers . That is, the largest audiences for CART: Mexico and Canada, are not counted in "the ratings" Imagine if CART only counted attendance at races in the United States in announcing how many people attended races?

If we could figure out a multiplier to use to add in the Canadian and Mexican audiences, perhaps we'd be even more pleased at the ratings.

[Snrub]

Yes the sponsors left because of Indy, but the good CART events add up to a lot more eyeballs over time. (granted we're ignoring the Speed races) Who is likely to be influenced by seeing two ads during indy vs. dozens of a company's ads over the course of a season or multiple races.

[paul-collins]

My understanding is that OW (that is, CART) rating were in the low to mid 2's for most races "back in the day." I don't have numbers to back up old ratings, though.

Indy used to be something like an 8 IIRC (may have been higher - heck, the time trials used to get 2s); oh how the mighty have fallen - the Coke 600 had higher ratings on the same day as Indy the last two years. (2001 -> 5.8, 2002 -> 4.8, 2003 -> 4.6)

[macdaddy]

In adding to Liz' post...
Figuring Canada and Mexico into the figures would surely increase the ratings. In doing so, the figure for the IRL may well drop.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Toronto event garners higher Canadian numbers than the Indy500. Likewise Mexico and one of their home events.

Canada, however, is a much smaller market than the US.

[corkholio]

Hence why there are sponsors from Mexico and Canada, trouble is that a lot of those sponsors care more about drivers' ability to crawl up the right family tree than their abilities on track. Don't forget that there isn't a single team operating out of those two countries.

[macdaddy]

Players supported Canadian drivers. That was their legacy.
And all of the teams are US-based. It would be silly to have to drive to Toronto or Mexico City every off-weekend.

At any rate, as of now there are NO Canadian sponsors. Just a huge promoter.

[paul-collins]

Originally posted by corkholio
Hence why there are sponsors from Mexico and Canada, trouble is that a lot of those sponsors care more about drivers' ability to crawl up the right family tree than their abilities on track.

I think that's a bit off the mark, although I understand your frustration about talent levels.

Sponsors spend their money to market themselves. The driver is as much part of their package as is the livery on the car, probably moreso. Why would Players want to sponsor an American driver when they sell their product in Canada?

For that matter, if Lavin brought in the Corona money, whose fault is it that he gets to drive in their colours? If he goes, does their money stay in the series? I'd guess not. So better to have them both in the series than to have neither.

[corkholio]

The problem isn't so much so picking drivers based on Nationality, although it would be nice if the Canadian and Mexican sponsors wouldn't do that, but I understand if that's not economically viable for them. The problem comes when sponsors aren't even picking the best drivers available of their wanted nationality.

[macdaddy]

Totally understand your point, Cork.
However I've no problem with national sponsors choosing national drivers. If not for that, Canada would still be awaiting their first WDC.

[vatuloa]

In Australia we get up to a 20hour delay on Tv coverage so it's unlikley it will ever rate until the series settles down. Once you have teams and drivers that have been around for a couple of years the popularity of CART will improve.

[muggle not]

What does count is the rating that will get sponsors back on-board, whatever it may be. I do not know what that rating is.....does anyone else here know?