[January 28, 2013]

NFL Viewers Overwhelmingly Prefer Watching Home-Team Games on Local Broadcast TV Stations Over ESPN and NFLN Cable Nets

TVB (www.tvb.org), the not-for-profit trade association of America's commercial broadcast television industry today released an analysis of NFL home-team, regular season viewing. The analysis reveals that when viewers had the option of watching their home-team on the local broadcast television station or on the ESPN (News - Alert) or NFLN cable networks, that NFL fans overwhelmingly favored their local TV station. In the 30 markets where a regular season game was simultaneously offered on both a local TV station and one of the cable nets, the average household broadcast rating exceeded the cable network rating by 74% (based on a TVB analysis of Nielsen Media Research Househld data 9/10/12 - 12/22/12).

When cable networks ESPN and NFLN host a nationwide presentation of an NFL football game, they are required to provide a live feed of that game to each team's respective local broadcast TV station partner. Local market simulcasts of home-team NFL games occurred 60 times during the 2012 regular season. Local TV stations attracted as much as 4.5 times the game day household viewers compared with the cable networks that televised the game at the same time.

The top 5 markets where NFL household ratings on local TV stations exceeded simulcast games on the cable networks were; Milwaukee/Packers (351% higher TV station ratings than cable), Minneapolis/Vikings (+261%), Cleveland/Browns (+212%), New Orleans/Saints (+212%) and St. Louis/Rams (+211%). The 2013 Super Bowl teams were also favored during the season, ranking 6^th and 13^th in the analysis: Baltimore/Ravens (+206%) and San Francisco 49ers (+84%).

"What has more local appeal than watching your hometown NFL team on your hometown TV station " said Steve Lanzano, President and CEO of TVB. "Local TV stations provide the community insights, flavor and fun that fans crave. That's why local TV stations can deliver four times the home-team NFL audiences than cable's ESPN or NFLN networks. When it comes to NFL football, local broadcast television provides a significant home team advantage to marketers seeking to optimize the reach of their brand promotion."

Link to analysis

About TVB

TVB is the trade association of America's commercial broadcast television industry. To learn more visit www.tvb.org.

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