Monday Night Football Gaining Yards on Cable TV

Interesting article from Bnet.com I read today.

The writer of the post, media critic Catharine P. Taylor, asked why ESPN decided to move its Monday night football show from ABC to ESPN? ESPN made the move prior to the 2008 season, at a time when Monday night football was the most watched show on television.

I looked on Nielsen ratings and tried to see if Taylor’s hypothesis coincided with drops in ratings for Monday night football? In turns out that Taylor is way off.

According to Nielsen TV ratings, MNF is still kicking but when it comes to TV ratings, despite being on cable. In fact, while the numbers are pretty comparable from the past ABC ratings to the present ESPN ones, ESPN has had some of the biggest nights ever, including one back in October.

While cable may not be as highly watched as network television, mainly because network television is free and cable is vastly expensive, ESPN Monday Night Football is still able to compete with the best of them.

When it comes to cable TV shows, advertisers are hesitant in knowing that consumers these days, especially younger adults, are either watching the game on TIVO or DVR, or simply watching it on their HUKU accounts.

Still, Monday Night Football, like all sports events, works well because it is almost imperative that it is watched live. No one really has the opportunity these days to tape a game and watch it the next day, like a TV show, because they will almost always be told the score instantly by a friend or an accidental glance at their computer.

Additionally, MNF can be shown in bars, airports and hotel lobbies where as no bar is going to show an episode of the office. So, even if a guy like me cannot afford cable, he can still run over to the nearest bar showing the game.

Point in all this is that ESPN, despite Taylor’s concerns, is still flourishing in cable TV ratings, and nothing rakes it in more for them that MNF. It is not only a wave of the future but MNF has been putting up these big numbers for years. In 2006 alone ESPN had 92.2 million subscribers.

So while cable companies may be frightened by devices such as DVR, HULU of driving away advertisers, just look at what ESPN has continued to do for years; The numbers simply do not lie.