Posted in News
2 comments
09/28 2010

Pardon the Sports Guy, But People Liked To Watch His TV Interruptions

Posted by Dan Levy.

Okay, that’s not the best headline, but it is true. Bill Simmons finished up his week-long stint as guest host of PTI on Friday and while he wasn’t as polished (no pun) as Wilbon, he did get better and more comfortable as the week progressed. Sure, we took a jab at him for complaining about Tom Brady not being “Boston” enough. Sure he made a Football Outsiders reference and when Kornheiser asked him what DVOA meant he didn’t know. But heck, it got people watching.

Per TV by the Numbers (screen grab taken from there too):

Sure, we heard from a few readers who didn’t like Bill Simmons’ guest hosting stint on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption last week. But fortunately for ESPN (and Mr. Simmons) those viewers don’t matter.

The viewers who do matter, i.e. the viewers who have Nielsen People Meters, liked him just fine. PTI got more viewing the week Simmons was on than it did the previous week.

Here are the numbers from those two weeks:

    Date Day – Viewers (Millions)
    20-Sep Monday –  1.523
    22-Sep Wednesday – 1.383
    21-Sep Tuesday – 1.331
    24-Sep Friday – 1.292
    23-Sep Thursday – 1.263
    14-Sep Tuesday – 1.396
    17-Sep Friday – 1.284
    15-Sep Wednesday – 1.199
    16-Sep Thursday – 1.120
    13-Sep Monday – 1.067

It’s important to note a few important points: First, Simmons didn’t start until Tuesday, so the highest rated show of that span by a mile was hosted by Kornheiser and Wilbon.

The show on September 13 — the lowest by far — was at like noon (actually 3:30 p.m.) because of the MNF double header that day. Kornheiser hosted the first four days of the week of September 13th with Wilbon. Dan Le Batard filled in on Friday.

If you want to compare Simmons to Wilbon, you only have to look at Tuesday-Thursday where the numbers were clearly in favor of Simmons’ week on the show. That said, Le Batard almost beat Simmons’ Friday numbers.

What does this say about Wilbon?

Share
Posted on September 28, 2010 at 1:50PM

 

USER COMMENTS

Track comments via RSS 2.0 feed. Feel free to post the comment, or trackback from your web site.

  1. Eric
    09/28 2010

    Here’s what I believe that says about Wilbon, people like fresh faces. I have watched a lot of PTI since it began but I sometimes don’t feel the need to watch PTI everyday anymore because I have a good idea of what Wilbon will say everyday. I don’t know if consistently Le Batard or Simmons (who is the man) would do as well as Wilbon, but they are a nice change of pace.

  2. Ian Casselberry
    09/28 2010

    Eric echoes my thoughts almost exactly. PTI can sometimes feel a little bit stale. Sometimes I don’t watch, sometimes I just fast-forward to the topics I care about. And part of that is because we’re not often surprised anymore by what Wilbon (and Kornheiser, to an extent) will say.

    But even the subs – Dan LeBatard and Bob Ryan – seem kind of stale.

    Simmons brought something fresh to the show. Besides the novelty of seeing him and wondering how he’d perform, he brought some interesting takes and information. (And even some humor, as with the “Word” game.) It also helped that he had some chemistry with Mr. Tony (as we knew he would, given the conversations they’ve had previously on each other’s shows/podcasts). I’d love to see him back.