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BY STACI D. KRAMER
An across-the-board time change for its 15 regional sports reports ? from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m., or just after games ? appears to be paying off for Fox Sports Net.
Case in point: The Seattle-based ?Northwest Sports Report? ended the first quarter with a 0.18 rating for the 11 p.m. show. The switch to 10 p.m. coupled with a hot start for the Seattle Mariners, whose games now lead into the broadcast, boosted the ratings to 3.3, or, as the Fox PR department likes to boast, a 1,716 percent increase.
In more meaningful terms, with a point equaling 15,900 households, the ?Northwest Sports Report? went from being viewed by less then 3,000 households to a more respectable 52,470 households.
Of course, when you start from zero, even the smallest blip can show astronomically improved ratings. Still, every region is up over the first-quarter average since the time change took effect at the beginning of April.
Such glee over one month of ratings for a 52-week show may be a tad over the top. But Fox Sports has sunk considerable resources into proving that it can do more than buy an audience by ponying up big bucks for TV rights. Like rival ESPN, it wants to create shows that have their own audience and value apart from the games. The difference is that Fox has yet to deliver the goods. The numbers offer a sign that they might be on their way.
Fox Sports Net president Tracy Dolgin said he initially slotted the local reports after the ?National Sports Report? to give the new shows a chance to work out the kinks. Now the major draw ? the local game ? flows into a local sports report, which is followed by the national program.
Fox Sports Net only released specific numbers for the nine regional networks owned by Fox; they saw an average gain of 332 percent. Seattle was by far the most improved; on the other end of the spectrum, the ?Midwest Sports Report? for Indianapolis was up from 0.06 to 0.10, or 74 percent. The St. Louis edition jumped from 0.19 to a 1.06, aided by Fox Sports Midwest's lead-in from St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals games, as well as the creation of a more St. Louis-centric report.
Dolgin is finally seeing results from the ambitious project that they launched last summer with little ramp-up time. It's still in the investment stage, he says, which means it's not turning a profit, but the ratings offer a sense that the programs are moving in the right direction.
Holding the lead-ins alone would make the business decision a great one, says Dolgin. ?The key though to go from a triple to a home run is that you're doing a good rating even on nights when you have no lead in.?
To that end, the programs have started the ?Fox Focus,? a nightly in-depth report that can be promoted the night before with hopes of creating appointment viewers, instead of just opportunity viewers. Fox's national desk in Los Angeles sends out five ideas every day that could work as a segment in any region, along with highlight packages.
The reports still aren't getting the bulk of the local lead-in audience, but they are getting enough of it to make a significant difference.
Rainbow Sports Networks, which owns the other six regionals that make up Fox Sports Net, isn't ready to throw a party just yet. They also don't want to share ratings results, other than to say none of their regions come close to Seattle's numbers. ?We're still evaluating the program,? said Dan Ronayne, vice president of marketing for Rainbow Media. ?It's been on at 10 for about one month right now. We're taking a longer view of this. I don't want to come out adversarial in this at all, that's not what I'm looking to do and it would disappointing if that's how I came out.? But he isn't ready to say a few weeks of data are a trend.
Will advertisers follow the numbers? ?I think that's the big question right now,? says Ronayne.
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