Barber IndyCar TV ratings

[mcman7890]

So 1 Person (Roy Hobbson) posted some numbers? That its? We're all jumping on this because one person tweeted a number? Once MP, Pressdog, Indy44, etc. Start giving numbers with links I'll believe it. Is Hobbson still working for VS? or did he get fired and this is a PT/KV bad blood type thing

[seeutrackside]

Versus is the death of IndyCar. How much longer is this awful TV deal? Even if Versus becomes NBC Sports it's not going to matter, and NBC isn't going to want something getting ratings of .2 clogging up airtime on a Sunday afternoon.

[AFColt]

The final rating was a .3, the same as last year.

I still haven't seen anything official. Has this been released yet?

[Grizzlor]

Masters got big numbers. The race should have started by 1 or 2 PM, not nearly 3. As a comparison, 380K households for Versus while the ABC final number was an average of 1,385,000 households, average. The problem continues to be the complete obscurity of Versus. If that race is on ESPN2, the rating is probably 0.8 or higher. Nor did it help that ABC never told viewers that the next event was on Versus.

[indyracefan]

Vs. is looking more and more like yet another terrible business decision by the former CEO of IndyCar.

[Chris Paff]

Why? So those casual viewers can also be bored and turned off for life on Indy racing? It's the product that's completely broken. Until Bernard figures that out not much is going to change. The Indianapolis 500 is the only event that anyone outside of diehard fans has any interest in. And even that has waned in recent years. The answer is right in front of everyone but no one in a position to do anything about it has a clue. So far that includes Randy Bernard. There are not going to be any quick fixes.

Spot on

[Grizzlor]

Wait a minute, over a million viewers tuned in on ABC for St. Pete, and apparently enjoyed the product. Nobody watches Barber on Versus? What's the difference? Easy, most people have never heard of Versus.

[Gomer Simpson]

If excuses were tenths of a rating point the series would be pulling down 8.8's. Every week there's something on every other network and cable channel, I'll say it again focus on improving and promoting the series stop whinning about the other sports that you compete with.

Since nobody else had said a word about other sports, I'll assume this is directed at me. All I have to say about that is

Too many people here just refuse to understand that their enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations do not translate to other people being interested and watching.

Really, simply because they acknowledge that it's stupid to go head to head with major sporting events? Whatever. I guess I'll just go on about my business of "whinning".

[Chris Paff]

Wait a minute, over a million viewers tuned in on ABC for St. Pete, and apparently enjoyed the product. Nobody watches Barber on Versus? What's the difference? Easy, most people have never heard of Versus.

How do you know they enjoyed the product?

[cbreez99]

Why? So those casual viewers can also be bored and turned off for life on Indy racing? It's the product that's completely broken. Until Bernard figures that out not much is going to change. The Indianapolis 500 is the only event that anyone outside of diehard fans has any interest in. And even that has waned in recent years. The answer is right in front of everyone but no one in a position to do anything about it has a clue. So far that includes Randy Bernard. There are not going to be any quick fixes.

There's an old saying in the resturant business. If you have a bad product (resturant) and promote it, you will likely go out of business. Before blaming versus, the product needs to improve.

[Darth Airbox]

There's an old saying in the resturant business. If you have a bad product (resturant) and promote it, you will likely go out of business. Before blaming versus, the product needs to improve.

Except that was have a baseline number that we get from network numbers. 1.2 at St. Pete on ABC, last year averaged about a 0.9 on network. So Versus gets a quarter of a network rating.

A better example to your restaurant analogy would be you have a location downtown get has good sales and then open a new location in a rural area which has poor sales.

With that said, it still remains to be seen whether the numbers are real.

[Grizzlor]

How do you know they enjoyed the product?

Because if I recall, the numbers grew as the race went on.

[doitagain]

I blame the Vs website. They should just link to us


Our traffic has grown every year. Last March was almost equal to last May

[Mearsfan53081]

I'd blame ABC for this...honestly. My dad, whom I learned to love sports from, is a regular watcher of Indycar. He doesn't get on the boards, read blogs and check Indycar.com everyday like I do, so he gets most of his Indycar news from me. We were sitting at lunch on the Saturday between the races, and I mentioned the GP of Alabama next Sunday...and his honest to God reaction was..."I didn't think there was another race until Indy". I blame ABC because I heard "see you at Indy" alot more than the twice they mentioned the next race at Barber. Only the Die-Hards know when the races are unless somebody tells them!

[Darth Airbox]

I'd blame ABC for this...honestly. My dad, whom I learned to love sports from, is a regular watcher of Indycar. He doesn't get on the boards, read blogs and check Indycar.com everyday like I do, so he gets most of his Indycar news from me. We were sitting at lunch on the Saturday between the races, and I mentioned the GP of Alabama next Sunday...and his honest to God reaction was..."I didn't think there was another race until Indy". I blame ABC because I heard "see you at Indy" alot more than the twice they mentioned the next race at Barber. Only the Die-Hards know when the races are unless somebody tells them!

I definitely think that is a reason for some drop off too. On tv shows my mom misses them quite often because they change days or hours. The only people who can keep up with this stuff are the nerds like us who sit on an internet forum discussing it

[Fro]

I definitely think that is a reason for some drop off too. On tv shows my mom misses them quite often because they change days or hours. The only people who can keep up with this stuff are the nerds like us who sit on an internet forum discussing it

Like I said, that's why they need to beat the audience to death when with the next race(s) is during the TV broadcast.

That's what UFC does and they're very successful despite having events on a very irregular schedule compared to most other sports.

[Big Daddy]

NBC has plans with VERSUS to beef it up to compete with ABC/ESPN. Sooner than later, VS will be in more households. Yes the ratings are bad, but these guys are doing a phenomenal job in coverage. Its unfortunate everybody cant get VS right now but its just something i think requires some patience. Of course if I was on the other end and didnt have VS i would be ranting right now.

[Grizzlor]

Frankly I don't think the # of households is the problem. HBO/Showtime series routinely get over a million households watching their network series, and they have far lower household availability. The problem is the majority of viewers have either never heard of Versus, have no idea what it shows, and finally where to find it (channel #) or if they even have it. Rebranding to NBC is great, but they need a reason for people to go there. Unfortunately there's not another Olympics until the summer of 2012. Notre Dame football isn't until the fall. They need to be showing promos during WWE programming on USA, for instance.

[indyracefan]

Frankly I don't think the # of households is the problem. HBO/Showtime series routinely get over a million households watching their network series, and they have far lower household availability. The problem is the majority of viewers have either never heard of Versus, have no idea what it shows, and finally where to find it (channel #) or if they even have it. Rebranding to NBC is great, but they need a reason for people to go there. Unfortunately there's not another Olympics until the summer of 2012. Notre Dame football isn't until the fall. They need to be showing promos during WWE programming on USA, for instance.

I concur with much of this. I've had to inform several friends and family members about Vs. They too had never heard of it for one, and then didn't even know they had it...which in their cases they did. They're casual fans and not dedicated fans such as us so they don't visit message boards and rarely-to-never go to the IndyCar.com site. And even the couple that did, again they didn't even realize they had Vs.

Perhaps eventually the Comcast/NBC deal will turn into better things. But for now anyway, it still looks to be a bad decision made on part of the former CEO of IndyCar.

[skypigeon]

Masters got big numbers. The race should have started by 1 or 2 PM, not nearly 3. As a comparison, 380K households for Versus while the ABC final number was an average of 1,385,000 households, average. The problem continues to be the complete obscurity of Versus. If that race is on ESPN2, the rating is probably 0.8 or higher. Nor did it help that ABC never told viewers that the next event was on Versus.

Thank you for pointing out the biggest reason these ratings are horrible, and why they should improve when NBC picks up the Indianapolis 500 and a few other IndyCar races. At least a little. NONE OF ITS PROMOTION TELLS YOU WHERE TO FIND IT!

FWIW, I've seen tons of IndyCar promotion this year--especially compared to previous years--and NONE of it says, even as a teeny little tag on the very end, "WATCH INDYCAR RACING ON VERSUS AND ABC." DUMB. Just plain DUMB.

[ptclaus98]

Since nobody else had said a word about other sports, I'll assume this is directed at me. All I have to say about that is

Really, simply because they acknowledge that it's stupid to go head to head with major sporting events? Whatever. I guess I'll just go on about my business of "whinning".

LOL

For future reference, if you want to use a good middle finger, the VanDerMemes one does the trick real well.

[BrakeEarly]

Thank you for pointing out the biggest reason these ratings are horrible, and why they should improve when NBC picks up the Indianapolis 500 and a few other IndyCar races. At least a little. NONE OF ITS PROMOTION TELLS YOU WHERE TO FIND IT!

FWIW, I've seen tons of IndyCar promotion this year--especially compared to previous years--and NONE of it says, even as a teeny little tag on the very end, "WATCH INDYCAR RACING ON VERSUS AND ABC." DUMB. Just plain DUMB.

I'm still baffled by the assumption that ABC has any intention of balking on their first right of refusal.

[Cosworth]

Nascar doesn't even try to go up against the Masters, Indycar not only goes head to head but takes the green flag just as the Masters start the back 9.

[TJ Halsema]

This from John Oreovicz's:
The fan-and competitor-unfriendly 3:45 start time at Barber DID bite INDYCAR in the ass - the VERSUS TV rating of 0.3 was down 25 percent from last year's dismal 0.4. A sad state of affairs

[bduddy]

It sounds bad, but ratings 0.1 off are surely within Nielsen's margin of error. Essentially meaningless.

[demond sanders]

1.) Agree about the start time.... what sport starts an event at 3:45 eastern?? Weird.

2.) I love Versus, but you have to find it by accident. There are no other explanations needed.

3.) The product isn't great just yet, but it is improving each year. It deserves better exposure.

[pb]

It sounds bad, but ratings 0.1 off are surely within Nielsen's margin of error. Essentially meaningless.

I'm afraid something getting a .3 or .4 is essentially meaningless.

[pb]

I concur with much of this. I've had to inform several friends and family members about Vs. They too had never heard of it for one, and then didn't even know they had it...which in their cases they did. They're casual fans and not dedicated fans such as us so they don't visit message boards and rarely-to-never go to the IndyCar.com site. And even the couple that did, again they didn't even realize they had Vs.

Perhaps eventually the Comcast/NBC deal will turn into better things. But for now anyway, it still looks to be a bad decision made on part of the former CEO of IndyCar.

Those who know for real (not me) say that Versus was the option that involved receiving a check rather than paying a check. In that respect, the former CEO may have made the correct decision.

[indyracefan]

Those who know for real (not me) say that Versus was the option that involved receiving a check rather than paying a check. In that respect, the former CEO may have made the correct decision.

Don't misunderstand my position. I'm a long-time fan, I like what Versus is trying to do and I'm not a TG-hater. If that is indeed the case then perhaps. There's been so many different version's floated around no-one seems to really know for sure. Hopefully things will improve in the long-run and the network will grow and gain viewers. In the short-term though it appears to have really handicapped the series.

[Billy Chin]

NBC has plans with VERSUS to beef it up to compete with ABC/ESPN. Sooner than later, VS will be in more households. Yes the ratings are bad, but these guys are doing a phenomenal job in coverage. Its unfortunate everybody cant get VS right now but its just something i think requires some patience. Of course if I was on the other end and didnt have VS i would be ranting right now.

But isn't it just as likely that NBC will balk at continuing a relationship with Indycar (based upon the anemic ratings to date on Versus)? Not sure it's (growth under a rebranded Versus / NBC Sports Channel) the slam dunk so many believe it to be . . .