Series ratings hit low, then rebound

Television ratings for this year’s World Series games in Detroit dipped to a record low for the opener, then bounced back for Game 2.

The St. Louis Cardinals’ 7-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night received an 8.0 fast national rating and 15 share, Fox said Monday, down 16% from the previous record low for an opener, a 9.5 for last year’s 5-3 Chicago White Sox victory over the Houston Astros.

Detroit’s 3-1 victory in Game 2 on Sunday night got an 11.5/18, up 4% from the 11.1 rating for Chicago’s 7-6 victory in the second game last year.

Overall, that left the first two games averaging a record-low 9.8, down 5% from the previous bottom, a 10.3 for the first two games last year.

Fox’s 6.5 average rating for the league championship series was down 4% from last year’s 6.8.

On each of the first two nights of the World Series, Fox won prime time. Fox finished second in prime time last week for the first time this season, 0.1 behind ABC.

The national rating is the percentage of U.S. TV households tuned to a program, and each point represents 1,114,000 homes. The share is the percentage of households watching a broadcast among those homes with TVs in use at the time.

Game 1 received a 41.0 rating in St. Louis and a 32.5 in Detroit, and Game 2 received a 47.5 rating in St. Louis and a 42.9 in Detroit.

Because of perennially low ratings for all Saturday night programming, baseball and Fox are switching the start of the World Series to Tuesday beginning next year.