8 October 2008 10:32 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news
Thanks to the baseball playoffs, TBS became the top cable network last week. (Its coverage of the third game of the American League division series between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was the most-watched game of the week.) The ratings victory came despite a 20-percent fall-off in total viewers for the playoffs from 2007 when the New York Yankees, representing the city with the largest viewing audience, were competing. Baseball could not draw as many viewers as football, however, as ESPN's Monday Night Football coverage of the Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers contest scored 11.8 million viewers, making it the top-rated cable telecast of the week and helped put ESPN into third place in the overall ratings. Fox News Channel also zoomed to the top of the cable ratings chart, placing second for the week as it drew a record (for FNC) 11.1 million viewers for its telecast of the vice-presidential debate, almost as many as tuned in to each of the Big 3 broadcast networks to watch the candidates square off in their only face-to-face encounter.
