TBS’s American League Division Series opening doubleheader averaged more than 4 million viewers on Thursday.
The network averaged 4.1 million watchers on Oct. 2 with its presentation of Baltimore’s bashing of Detroit and Kansas City’s latest extra inning triumph, this time over the Los Angeles Angels, according to Nielsen fast nationals data. That was up 32% from the 3.1 for the comparable day of the 2013 MLB postseason, when the National League Division Series twinbill of Pittsburgh-St. Louis and LA Dodgers-Atlanta averaged 3.1 million watchers in the same windows.
The junior circuit doubleheader, which squared off against CBS/NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football mismatch between Green Bay and Minnesota and ESPN’s college football doubleheader that included No. 2 Oregon losing to Arizona in the late-starting nightcap, delivered a 2.6 U.S. rating, up 30% from a 2.0 mark in 2013.
The ALDS coverage gave TBS night in cable, based on metered market ratings, and drove it to a 25% jump among persons 18 to 49 and 16% with guys of that age.
Game 1 between the Orioles and Tigers averaged a 2.5 rating, up 47% from a 1.7 for Cards-Pirates and 4 million total viewers, up 54% from 2.6 million last year. The telecast peaked with a 3.3 rating and 5.4 million total viewers in the 8:15 p.m. quarter hour (ET).
Locally, the telecast posted a 17.3 HH rating in the Baltimore DMA and a 16.0 in Detroit.
The starter of the other ALDS, in which the Royals prevailed 3-2 over the Angels in the 11th, averaged 4.2 million total viewers, up 20% from the 3.5 million viewers for the network’s Dodgers-Braves telecast last year. Thursday’s nightcap scored a 17% gain to a 2.7 rating from a 2.3%
The telecast earned a 30.8 in Kansas City – the highest rating for an MLB game in the market on record (dating back to 1998) – and an 8.5 HH rating in L.A.
