FOX’s Liverpool-Newcastle Broadcast Scores More Than 1 Million Viewers On Tape Delay

FOX’s broadcast of the Liverpool against Newcastle United game, which was shown on tape delay on the free-to-air network, scored a 0.7 national TV rating with an estimated TV viewing audience of 1.03 million people.

The match had been shown live on FOX Soccer earlier in the day on Sunday, November 4.

In many US markets, the tape-delayed broadcast of Liverpool-Newcastle (2pm ET or 4:30pm ET) went head-to-head with a live broadcast of the MLS playoff game between Sporting Kansas City and Houston Dynamo, which was shown on the free-to-air NBC national TV network (3:30pm ET). In contrast, the MLS game generated a 0.3 TV rating, which was tied for the weekend’s lowest rated sports event on broadcast TV. The other sports event that tied MLS for the worst TV rating of the weekend was a show called “World Adventure Sports.”

NBC’s excellent production quality and coverage of MLS cannot be faulted. Unfortunately it’s another in a long list of examples of viewers not being interested in a national soccer league that has a lot of growing pains particularly in its attempts to net large viewing audiences.

FOX’s audience of 1.03 million people who watched Liverpool-Newcastle in consistent with the 0.7 TV rating and 1 million viewing audience who watched Liverpool against Manchester United on September 23, 2012.