Overall TV ratings down 2nd straight year

NASCAR ends its season Sunday with ratings down again this year. And while it has fan interest beyond its Southern base, it's still an also-ran in big cities outside the South. This season's NASCAR Nextel Cup races — airing on Fox, TNT, ESPN and ABC — are averaging 4.2% of U.S. TV households — down 9% from last year's average and off 21% from 2005. ABC's Checker Auto Parts 500 on Sunday — when Jimmie Johnson virtually nailed down the season points title — showed interest still is largely regional. The race drew 10.5% of households in Greenville, S.C., 9.1% in Knoxville, Tenn. and 7.8% in Birmingham, Ala. But it drew just 1.3% in New York, 1.9% in Los Angeles and 2.4% in Chicago. Dick Glover, NASCAR vice president/broadcasting, notes the average NASCAR race ratings in New York (1.9%), Los Angeles (2.1%) and Chicago (2.9%) — which together constitute about 15% of TV households in the USA — are up slightly or even with last year. He concedes there's no silver bullet to win over more major-market eyeballs: "All you can do is expose your product and see if people like it." But Glenn Enoch, ESPN vice president/research, suggests NASCAR's viewer drop-off has an asterisk. Ratings this season among males age 18-34 — whom advertisers covet because they haven't always formed brand loyalties and are seen as more susceptible to advertising — are "virtually flat." The big losses came among viewers older than 55. Since NASCAR's biggest stars all appear in a single weekend race, its ratings are more indicative of overall viewer interest than ratings for sports such as football, basketball and baseball, where audiences get splintered across lots of time slots. And NASCAR's stand-alone race ratings make the sport's TV appeal seem pretty big — until you compare them to the cumulative appeal of other sports. Consider that weekend college football games just on Disney's ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 can produce total ratings about five times bigger than NASCAR's 4.2% race average. And NFL games each week typically produce total ratings well over 10 times bigger than the NASCAR race average. USA Today