ESPN Breaks Record for Cable Even though Streamed
I have a few take aways from this impressive report of how ESPN did in its broadcast of the BCS Championship game last night, where it broke the record for most viewers on a cable channel broadcast. Mainly, I hope this will quiet some of the talk how online streaming video HURTS television broadcasters. Quite impressive numbers and I would hope ESPN considers expanding their ESPN3 lineup to even one day include their non-sporting events such as SportsCenter, and of course Monday Night Football.
Last night’s Tostitos Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship on ESPN was watched by an average of 27,316,000 viewers (P2+) and 17,718,000 households, more than any program in the history of cable television. The previous record was an ESPN Monday Night Football contest, Green Bay at Minnesota on October 5, 2009, with an audience of 21,839,000 viewers (P2+) and 15,136,000 homes, based on a 15.3 coverage rating…On ESPN3.com, the game was watched by more than 619,000 unique viewers, its most ever for a college football game and fourth all-time behind three 2010 FIFA World Cup
ESPN3 was a lifesaver last
ESPN3 was a lifesaver last night. Since cutting out cable a few months ago the only thing I really miss is ESPN. I though I was going to have to miss the game last night. but ESPN3 came up huge for me. I can’t see MNF ever being streamed on it though because I believe the NFL has their own online streaming content. I also remember hearing somewhere a while back that the NFL and DirecTV have partnered up to provide NFL football online with packages similar to DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket in the future.
KustomKid wrote:ESPN3 was a
[quote=KustomKid]ESPN3 was a lifesaver last night. Since cutting out cable a few months ago the only thing I really miss is ESPN. I though I was going to have to miss the game last night. but ESPN3 came up huge for me. I can’t see MNF ever being streamed on it though because I believe the NFL has their own online streaming content. I also remember hearing somewhere a while back that the NFL and DirecTV have partnered up to provide NFL football online with packages similar to DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket in the future.[/quote]
NFL’s online dealio is the Sunday Ticket, which only works for the morning and afternoon games. Plus, NBC is allowed to stream their Sunday Night Football, which tells me it’s 100% an ESPN decision not to offer it via ESPN3. Which is quite foolish if you ask me.
My experience was terrible.
My experience was terrible. I believe ESPN3 uses the bandwidth from your ISP not the content provider. On my 360 I was stuck on the first bar almost all night. Apparently my local ISP was being overtask on request to watch the stream. it reminded of how bad IPTV is when you try to scale it to a huge audience compared to cableOTA.
My bandwidth was fine at house I pull down 5mb 24/7 with my DSL. It was just ESPN3 that was terrible.