ESPN Ratings and Awards
HIGHLIGHTS
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In 2008, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic & ESPNEWS combined to average a record 1,139,000 homes (24-hour basis).
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Including /ESPN Deportes (rated since April 2008), a record 220 M Americans – 76% of nation – watched ESPN nets (92% of cable homes) in 4Q 2008.
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Adding ESPN on ABC, a record 250 million Americans – 86% of the population – watched ESPN on TV in 4Q 2008.
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ESPN media reach up to 104 million people each week (Oct. 1 – Nov. 16, 2008)…119 million including ESPN on ABC. Of that total, 6.7 million come exclusively from non-TV platforms (ESPN.com, ESPN Radio and ESPN The Magazine).
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The highest rating in ESPN history is a 14.4 for the Chicago Bears at the Minnesota Vikings on December 6, 1987, won by Chicago 30-24. Outside of NFL games, ESPN’s highest rating came on the company’s 19th anniversary – September 7, 1998 – with a 9.5 for the Labor Day game in which Mark McGwire hit his 61st home run: Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals. It is also ESPN’s most-watched telecast (excluding NFL) – 7,104,000 homes.
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SportsCenter is seen by as many as 16 million people per day and 100 million people per month (4Q, 2008)
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ESPN primetime NFL series (Sunday Night Football 1987 – 2005, Monday Night Football 2006 – 2008) has been ad-supported cable’s highest-rated series each of its 22 years (1987 – 2008).
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In three seasons on ESPN, Monday Night Football has registered seven of the top 10 all-time biggest household audiences in cable history, led by the Eagles-Cowboys telecast on September 15, 2008, which attracted cable’s largest household audience ever (an average of 12,953,000 million homes).
ESPN CAPTURES AWARDS
- In 22 years of eligibility, ESPN has received 128 Sports Emmy Awards.
- ESPN has three times been honored with a Peabody Award, one of television’s most prestigious honors, which recognize “outstanding achievement in electronic media.” ESPN was cited for the original SportsCentury countdown of the greatest North American athletes of the 20th Century in 1999, for The Complete Angler, a 2002 ESPN Original Entertainment program which traced the footsteps of legendary angler Isaac Walton through England and Ireland, and for Black Magic, a documentary in 2008 on basketball at historically black colleges during the civil rights era.
- ESPN programming is been regularly honored by a wide variety of organizations and awards, ranging from those honoring television excellence (New York Festivals, Tellys and Parents’ Choice Awards) and journalism (Scripps Howard and Northeastern University Awards) to those focused on issues related to women and minorities (EMMAs, Women in Cable and Telecommunications, Gracies, White House Project and NAMIC Awards).
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