http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/december/college-football-tv-ratings-are-in-are-fans-tuning-out.html
Written by Allen Kenney on Dec 23, 2012 15:52.
Ed Note: This article appears courtesy our friends at Crystal Ball
Run.
http://bloguin.com/crystalballrun/
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2012/12/21/Media/CFB-viewership.aspx
Austin Karp of Sports Business Daily has the television ratings for
college football's 2012 regular season, and it’s tough to know what to
make of them.
Aside from NBC, the home network for an undefeated Notre Dame team,
the networks all saw declines in ratings this year. They ranged from
ESPN losing roughly 4 percent of its audience from a year ago to NBC
Sports Network hemorrhaging more than 70 percent of its viewers after
ending its relationship with the Pac-12.
Although the headline is jarring, my initial reaction was that it
should come as no surprise that ratings would come down. The usual
suspects such as ESPN and ABC are now competing with CBS Sports
Network, Big Ten Network, Pac-12 Network and FOX College Sports
regional channels. (Note that those stations are not rated.)
Furthermore, viewers can access content via online channels -- their
PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets with streaming capabilities. I
don't know how the Nielsen Ratings account for that, let alone how
popular they are with users yet, but it probably has at least some
effect.