From Outkick the Coverage:
This past weekend the NFL had three very competitive games among its four divisional round playoff contests.
Unfortunately for the league, ratings continued to plummet.
In fact, ratings are plummeting so much that virtually no major media outlets are even talking about ratings at all. It’s almost like the league and its television partners have put out the code red not to acknowledge the collapse in viewership so far in 2018.
...
Adding all these numbers up 120.8 million viewers watched the NFL divisional round playoffs in 2018 vs. 144.1 million who watched in 2017, a decline of 23.3 million total viewers.
That’s an overall viewership decline of over 16%, even steeper than last week’s 13% playoff decline. (Even if you leave out the Packers-Cowboys numbers completely the NFL playoff ratings would have still been down 10.3%).
These playoff numbers weren’t just bad compared to last year either, they hit a ten year low.
Will that change this coming weekend with the AFC and NFC title games? We’ll see. But no matter how you slice it, the NFL ratings, both playoff and regular season, are collapsing in 2018.
Read the whole thing
Yep and the wind went out of their sails when JAX beat PIT and ruined the magic match up. Still might do OK since some will tune it to see Brady and the Pats get upset. However, that did not work for the SB last year as it was down. In fact, there were only 2 playoff games that eclipsed 2016, DAL-GB and NE-PIT, the Big 4.
I started a similar thread after the WC weekend and someone replied "yeah, but those games we're still #1 in the time slot" which is also fact. However, it is not being #1 in the time slot, it is about delivering ratings points to the ad agencies. A point = 1% of the demographic, in this case 18-49. Neither the NFL or nets need to talk about it, every agency had the overnights and those points were guaranteed in order to get the rates they wanted to get. Now, these agencies are due makegood's to make up the short fall in points or worse, credit if it was an end of run for the client.
What was once a slam dunk for ad agencies is now a big ?. They will still buy the spots but not at the rates the nets need to cover the expense. That is ESPN's problem and why they keep bleeding, they cannot get enough for the spots to cover the expense of the rights fee and producing the games.
Oh, they'll fault the anthem protests, like they did the presidential debates last year, but that will only fly so far. My reason for reducing my time spent viewing the NFL is that the games are too much of a chore to get through and their latest little split screen with an ad on the right only makes it worse.
I spent 25 years in radio management and if I were a TV exec, I would enforce the content and time rule a lot of us used. No more than one per hour and the ad must be changed monthly. Not only do I have to sit there through far too many commercials, they're the same ones that started the season. I like Dennis Leary but if I hear "it is the bar" one more time or that "real people. not actors" crap as if I didn't know they're not actors, they suck delivering their lines, it is remote at the speed of sound time. I actually have gone from being entertained to not being entertained to being pissed over the last 5 seasons.
And for the love of all that is right in this world, how long does it take to look at the recording of the play? Are they purposefully dragging this out to work even more ads to accommodate the Golden Geese. If they can't manage it any better, do away with it. They haven't really solved anything because we still argue the replays.
