ESPN led the way in college football’s second week, airing the most-watched game among all networks – broadcast and cable – and, combined with ABC, three of the top four games. The two networks also shined in prime-time, as ESPN and ABC aired the two most-watched games among all the competition, and factoring in ESPN’s final game window of the day, the three most-watched Saturday night games across broadcast and cable.
ESPN Draws Best Audience in Week 2, Ranks First in All Key Audience Demos Clemson at Texas A&M (7 p.m.) on ESPN delivered a Nielsen total live audience of 4,486,000 viewers, the most-watched game of the weekend and cable’s second most-watched regular season Saturday game since November 2016. The thrilling ACC-SEC matchup propelled ESPN to ‘win the night’ among all broadcast and cable networks, as the network ranked first in all key demos including: households, viewers, men 18-34, men 18-49, and people 18-34. ESPN has now ‘won the night’ among viewers twice this college football season, and led all networks in the key men 18-34 demo in four nights this season. Combined with ABC, the two networks have led in the demo five times.
Additional Tigers-Aggies Highlights:
· Significant Audience Increases: The nearly 4.5 million viewers is up 33% from ESPN’s similar window last year, which also featured Clemson, as the Tigers hosted Auburn.
· High Drama Peaks Audience: The audience peaked at nearly 6 million viewers as the Aggies attempted a two-point conversion to tie the game with under one minute to go (10:30 – 10:41 p.m.).
