ESPN's NFL Draft coverage sets record

from mediaweek

ESPN's NFL Draft Scores Solid Ratings
John Consoli

Mike...

Could there be a bigger waste of time than sitting around watching a
football draft? Well, maybe watching coverage of college signing day.
Good grief.

fruitbat...

Yeah, and the ratings are just going to encourage ESPN to saturate the
pre-draft months even *more*. Ugh...

I don't get the obsession, myself. When one sport (or any TV show) I
watch ends for the season, I just find something else to watch...

William George Ferguson...

Watching the Major League Draft.

The NFL Draft coverage on ESPN and ESPN2 this past weekend was the
highest-rated and most-viewed draft coverage in ESPN's 27-year history
of televising the event.

ESPN's eight hours of coverage on Saturday afternoon and early evening
was seen in 4.2 million households, up 10 percent from the previous
record (3.8 million households) set last year. The show generated a
4.7 household rating, up 9 percent from last year, according to
Nielsen Media Research data.

ESPN said a total of 36 million people tuned in to at least part of
its weekend of 17-plus hours of coverage, up 6 percent from last year.
On Saturday, ESPN2's two hours of coverage, from 8-10 p.m., recorded a
1.5 rating, with 1.35 million homes watching. On Sunday, ESPN recorded
a 1.9 rating on Sunday for its 7-plus hours of coverage, averaging 1.7
million homes, an increase of 5 percent from 2005.

According to online measurement data from Hitwise, ESPN.com's homepage
and its NFL section combined for nearly an 11 percent share of all
online sports traffic on Draft Day, and was the most visited sports
Web site on both days of the Draft.