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New York's watching TV ratings exceptional in host city, low in other markets
NEW YORK (AP) -- Game 1 of the Subway Series ended a run of drastically dipping postseason baseball TV ratings. The preliminary Nielsen numbers for the Yankees' 4-3 victory over the Mets in 12 innings Saturday night were similar to those for World Series openers in recent years, despite failing to draw big audiences everywhere. Fox Sports' broadcast of the game drew a 14.0 overnight rating and 25 share. That's even with Game 1 of the 1997 World Series on NBC, and only slightly below the openers in 1998 (14.3 on Fox) and in 1999 (15.0 on NBC). Saturday's ratings increased each half-hour from 9 p.m. to midnight EDT, peaking from 11:30 p.m. to midnight with a 16.8/31. At 4 hours, 51 minutes, it was the longest game in World Series history. The last two World Series, both won by the Yankees in four-game sweeps, were the lowest-rated ever. Fox Sports, which recently secured exclusive TV rights to postseason baseball from 2001-06 as part of a $2.5 billion deal, has said it is counting on a six- or seven-game series between the evenly matched Yankees and Mets to boost ratings. TV audiences for baseball's playoffs slumped across the board this season, possibly because games had to compete with fall TV season premieres pushed back by the Olympics and with the televised presidential debates. The NLCS between the Mets and Cardinals, on Fox, was the lowest-rated league championship series. The two LCS combined -- NBC televised the Yankees' victory over the Mariners in the AL -- had ratings more than 30 percent under last year's. The division series on NBC and Fox were down more than 20 percent from 1999, while ESPN's coverage of eight division playoff games were off 16 percent. Predictably, Game 1 of the World Series was a huge hit in New York, the nation's biggest television market, with 62 percent of TVs that were on Saturday night tuning in to baseball. The game drew a 41.6 rating in New York -- the highest in the market since the final episode of "Seinfeld" in May 1998 got a 49.1. That helped offset a lackluster showing in Chicago. The country's third-largest market produced only a 10.3/19 - down 22 percent from Game 1 of last year's World Series between the Yankees and Braves. In Los Angeles, the No. 2 market, the rating was a 12.2/22, barely off last year's 12.3/26. Overnight ratings measure the country's 49 largest markets, covering about 66 percent of the United States. Each overnight rating point represents about 675,000 TV households. Share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given program. National ratings are expected to be released Tuesday.
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