McGwire Delivers a Win for Fox

Fox’s gamble to preempt regular programming Tuesday night to show Mark McGwire’s attempt to set a home run record paid off.

McGwire got the record and Fox got a 12.9 national rating Tuesday night, the highest regular-season baseball rating since ABC got a 13.4 for “Monday Night Baseball” on Aug. 23, 1982.

The share was a 21 and Fox estimates the number of viewers at 43.1 million.

The Los Angeles rating was a 15.0 with a 27 share.

The national number would have been about three to four points higher, industry sources said, had Tuesday night’s St. Louis Cardinal-Chicago Cub game not also been televised by WGN.

Monday’s game, in which McGwire tied Maris’ record with his 61st homer, got a 9.5 national rating on ESPN.

The Fox telecast Tuesday was blacked out in Chicago, the third largest U.S. market, and WGN got a 20.6 rating there. The superstation is available in 45 million homes.

Fox Sports executives David Hill and Ed Goren had to talk the network into delaying the season launch of “King of the Hill,” “Costello” and “Guinness World Records: Primetime” until next Tuesday, and it was the right decision.

The 12.9 is double the 6.4 Fox averaged for Tuesday nights last season.

Fox dominated the night, winning every half hour in prime time and out-rating CBS (8.4) by 54%. Fox’s rating peaked at 15.5 from 6-6:30 p.m. PDT, when McGwire hit the record homer.

St. Louis led all cities with a 43.4 rating, followed by Cleveland (21.2), Miami (18.2), Washington (17.9), Atlanta (17.6) and Philadelphia (17.2).

The last time there was a baseball regular-season game of this magnitude on broadcast television was in 1974, when Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth’s career home run record. NBC carried that game in prime time and drew a 22.3 rating.

But that came in an era when there were barely more than three choices for most viewers. With cable, the network share of the audience has dropped nearly in half.

The 9.5 ESPN got for Monday’s game is an ESPN record for baseball. In 1995, when Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, ESPN drew a 7.5 rating among cable households.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.