Falcons/Saints game Monday is the biggest cable telecast of the year
Saints quarterback Drew Brees celebrates the victory over the Falcons Monday night. CREDIT: Johnny Crawford/jcrawford@ajc.com
A big game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints Monday equaled huge viewership locally and nationally.
It drew more than half the TVs that were on in metro Atlanta and more than one-third of the entire local population. It was also the highest rated football game in Atlanta on record, according to Zap2it.com.
The game, which ended with the Saints winning 17-14 in the final minutes, aired on both ESPN as a “Monday Night Football” telecast and Channel 2 WSB-TV. Combined, the two networks brought in a whopping 37.2 rating, about three times larger than a typical top-rated show and equates to more than 1.5 million viewers. And of TVs that were on Monday night, 54 percent were tuned to the game.
Nationally, the game drew 19.1 million viewers on ESPN alone, according to Nielsen ratings. That’s the highest rated cable telecast of the year and third biggest ever. (Nine of the top 10 cable telecasts of all time are NFL football games. The only non-football telecast? “High School Musical 2″ from 2007 on the Disney Channel makes it into the top 10.)
NFL has been on a roll this year, showing increased ratings across the board. ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” averaged 14.7 million viewers through 15 weeks, on its way to its best year ever on that network. NFL Network’s Thursday night football games have averaged 5.7 million, the best in its five-year history.
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By Rodney Ho, rho@ajc.com, AJCRadioTV blog
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115 comments Add your comment
bigdave
December 29th, 2010
10:57 pm
“Sharon, are you so eager to talk about Vick that you can’t even comment on the actual topic of the blog? Dang……..that’s one helluva obsession. I guess you dont actually have a comment about the blog topic huh?”
this is coming from the same hypocrite that feels the need to bring up Mike on Falcon game day blogs. truly a head case. sick if you ask me.
Love New Orleans
December 30th, 2010
12:25 am
All of you people from Atlanta and those sad FALCANT Fans are PATHETIC!!!! REALLY… First of All “Rise up” LMAO.. we knocked ya’ll right down. Ya’ll don’t have no flavor. You all want to be like N.O. so bad. You all are sad just like Roddy White. And then you wanna bring crime into this.. last I checked there was crime in Houston and Atlanta before Hurricane Katrina… again just looking for excuses. YOu all ought to be shame of your selves. I will always love my city, it’s better than Atlanta any day. The people are real and what you see is what you get. The Saint’s have the best Fan Best in the league, we support our team win loose or draw. you all are just pissed cause you all went to the Super Bowl and DIDN”T WIN and we went for the first time and we won. So you damn right we have braggin rights… And when Carolina up set yall this weekend and we tear it down in the dome.. you all will be looking real stupid just like you all did on MOnday night.. You all wish you all were like us.. Bunch of whinning loosers.. get over it.. Who Dat is back in Efffect!
derek brown
December 30th, 2010
1:03 am
The Falcannots have no fan base, check out the blogs, even in an atlanta newspaper, more Saints fans blog on here then dirty bird fans, Go Figure …WHO DAT….
Atlanta Falcons vs New Orleans Saints: Most-Watched Cable Telecast of the Year | Blogging Dirty | An Atlanta Falcons Blog
December 30th, 2010
2:53 am
[...] Information used on this report via ajc.com [...]
M
December 30th, 2010
3:09 am
Wow, some of you people really hate Vick. Dam man, lay off it man. He killed a dam dog. I have one ok. If he had killed my dog I would would want money, millions of course. A dog is not a person stupid. An atlanta based airline just lost a military guys dog. Now, should the airline officials do time for this??? I think not. What would happen if he had killed one of you???. Are any of you accusers without sin. He did time for killing a dam dog. Any one here eat chicken, pork, steak, fish, etc. Get it?? How about, eat more salads OK??? Some of you love your kittys, and dogs, what about that Turkey you just carved the hell out of?? It had eyes, and a heart. I do care for my dog ok, but im not jumping in front of a car or train for him. I would for a kid or you ok. Now lets focus on more important issues in our country like, how the Falcons are doing in the Playoffs.
FACTS
December 30th, 2010
4:19 am
So the Falcons stunk up the joint in front of everybody! This also was the last MNF game of the year hmmm…………..
FACTS
December 30th, 2010
4:24 am
The Falcon blogs are more racist than Shanahan’s decision about McNabb, good luck getting free-agents next year you racist’s. No wonder the late Reggie White chose Green Bay over the Falcons!
NikkiFree
December 30th, 2010
5:45 am
Amazing. Two websites, ajc.com and nola.com, write articles about the same subject. If you read the version at nola.com the viewership was up because the nation “wanted to see America’s team”.. Can I vomit now? I do believe there was another team on the field that night. Maybe some folks actually wanted to see THAT team play.
derek brown
December 30th, 2010
10:27 am
@ NikkiFree NOLA.COM wrote their version because we have been there before as far as nation-wide appeal and Saints game generating high viewer ratings in many games. This is a first for the Falcons and you guys were only mentioned because you happen to be the ones the Saints were playing. now BELIEVE DAT!
PARTY FAB: NeNe Leakes & Toya Carter Host Saints/Falcons Party In ATL | atkinson.weightlossportalhq.com
December 30th, 2010
8:44 pm
[...] if you were wondering just how bg this game was, the AJC reports it was the biggest cable broadcast of the year: The game, which ended with the Saints [...]
PARTY FAB: NeNe Leakes & Toya Carter Host Saints/Falcons Party In ATL | The Buzz
December 30th, 2010
10:08 pm
[...] if you were wondering just how bg this game was, the AJC reports it was the biggest cable broadcast of the year: The game, which ended with the Saints [...]
PARTY FAB: NeNe Leakes & Toya Carter Host Saints/Falcons Party In ATL | AZDAZD
December 31st, 2010
2:22 am
[...] if you were wondering just how bg this game was, the AJC reports it was the biggest cable broadcast of the year: The game, which ended with the Saints [...]
PARTY FAB: NeNe Leakes & Toya Carter Host Saints/Falcons Party In ATL | six figure code
December 31st, 2010
1:01 pm
[...] if you were wondering just how bg this game was, the AJC reports it was the biggest cable broadcast of the year: The game, which ended with the Saints [...]
scottbravesfan
January 3rd, 2011
5:38 pm
About time they show some teams besides the NFC East and AFC East on national TV. The NFC south should be on national TV A LOT more than they are. It’s by far the best division in football and almost had three teams make the playoffs.
yayamama
January 4th, 2011
6:26 pm
I really think the nasty things been said by both fans are wrong but i was told that “trash talking” is part of the whole game thing . That been said, I think its just wrong to assume that everyone fron nola are trash because thats like people in new york thinking the atl is the new gay capital of the usa and not in a good way. Katrina is over , move on most of us have, those who went home let them stay there but the rest of rest are just living a civil life where we have started over . My husband is from nola but not trashy like some people fron there but the same could be said about atl because if its so much better than nola then why do most folks of means buy outside the city limits??? well who care it was just a game and no one on here was paid for or profit from it so I digress.