On Wednesday night, Chicagoans had a choice between the Cubs and Joey Fatone.
Chicagoans made the right decision.
The Cubs-Phillies games on Comcast SportsNet drew a 6.9 Nielsen rating in prime-time on Wednesday night (second item), making it the top-ranked network (broadcast and cable), beating the news coverage of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis on the cable news networks (whose coverage was subpar – the local streaming coverage on the Minneapolis’ local stations websites was much better), and the inane Singing Bee on NBC.
The Cubs also outdrew the White Sox-Yankees game on WGN, in which the White Sox lost 8-1 (WGN would’ve been better off airing those America’s Next Top Model reruns they pre-empted.)
Not only that, CSN scored a 9.8 rating with the game overrun at 10 p.m., topping all the network O&O newscasts.
Ratings for the Cubs have been going up, thanks to the team’s successful run this season, bucking the trend of sporting events whose ratings were losing to subpar reality TV fare and DVR usage.
If the Cubs make the post-season, all those theories about sports telecasts losing rating points to other fare and fragmentation will be thrown out the window.