Posted by Bud on September 15, 2009 at 09:48:14:
From Ed Sherman on his Crain's Chicago Business website blog today:
................
Bears opening disaster could hurt local stations
Posted by Ed Sherman
at 9/15/2009 3:29 AM CDT on Chicago Business
There is such a thing as peaking early in television. Sunday's Bears-Green Bay game might be as good as it gets on the local television ratings front in 2009.
The game on WMAQ-Ch. 5 did a whopping 34.8 rating in Chicago and a 53 share; 1 local ratings point is worth more than 35,000 homes and share is the percentage of television tuned to the telecast.
That was the highest rated regular-season Bears game since Dec. 11, 2006 when they played a Monday night game at St. Louis.
Sunday's number was huge for a season-opener and showed just how much fans had jumped on the Jay Cutler bandwagon.
The question is: Will they jump off after seeing the quarterback's performance Sunday and then hearing the punch-to-the-gut news that Brian Urlacher is out for the season?
The ratings still figure to be strong when CBS goes national with the late afternoon doubleheader game between the Bears and Steelers Sunday; it will be carried locally on WBBM-Ch. 2.
But with an 0-2 start looming on the horizon, the Bears ratings could drop sharply in upcoming games.
Little wonder why the heads of our local stations felt Lovie Smith's pain Monday.