Ratings

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JOHN BRINSLEY

Staff Reporter

Never mind their poor performance the cellar-dwelling Dodgers are bringing in higher television ratings on broadcast and cable television than a year ago.

KTLA-TV Channel 5 has drawn an average 4.4 Nielsen rating for 22 Dodgers games shown through June 29, up from a 3.9 rating for the like number of games a year ago. (Each rating point equals roughly 51,000 people.)

The fan fervor has been even more impressive on cable. For 38 games televised through June 24, Fox Sports West 2 has averaged a 2.4 rating, up from 1.7 for the 40 games the cable channel carried all of last year.

Because Fox Sports West 2 is a relatively new cable channel, the jump in ratings is partially due to its expansion into more households over the past year.

“Fox Sports West 2 didn’t even exist a couple of years ago,” said Jane Collins, vice president of research for Adlink, an L.A. marketing company that distributes advertising across cable systems. “As they’ve added more subscribers, the ratings have increased accordingly.”

Still, she adds, a 2.4 rating “is a very good cable rating. And in the sports venue, it’s especially valuable because advertisers want that male sports spectator.”

So why so much interest in the last-place Dodgers?

Executives at Fox Sports and KTLA say that with the season not even half over yet and with the Dodgers having one of the highest player payrolls in baseball, fans still expect the team to make a pennant run.

They also might be drawn to the new, high-priced stars, especially ace pitcher Kevin Brown, whose $105 million, seven-year contract is the most lucrative ever.

“Right now the Dodgers are the talk of the town because of Kevin Brown and expectations,” said Fox Sports West spokesman Steve Webster. “Yes, the Dodgers are in last place, but there are three and a half months left in the season. If the team starts to do well, and gets in the playoff race, ratings are going to go up even more.”

But if the Dodgers continue to lose, that attitude may change.

“Ratings typically go up when there is somebody to focus on, like (Kevin Brown),” said Collins. “If things keep getting worse (for the Dodgers), we’ll see.”

The rise in ratings comes as a relief to both the Dodgers and KTLA, because it breaks a three-year streak of declining viewership. The current ratings are still much lower than the average 6.2 rating in 1990 and the 7.2 rating in 1991 on KTLA. The team finished in second place both years, only a few games from the top.

Ratings plummeted to a 4.3 average in 1992 as the Dodgers posted their worst record ever: 63 wins and 99 losses, finishing 35 games out. Viewership pretty much stayed that way for the next two seasons, including the strike year of 1994. But a first-place divisional finish in 1995, helped by the excitement of the team’s fourth straight Rookie of the Year, Japanese import Hideo Nomo, sent ratings back up to 5.7, followed by a 5.9 rating in 1996 and a 5.6 rating in 1997.

But disappointment over the team’s post-season failures and last year’s trade of catcher Mike Piazza dampened enthusiasm. While the trade seemed emblematic of the new regime of Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox Corp. bought the team from the O’Malley family last year, the ratings resurgence might also be attributable to Fox’s harder-edged marketing. Fox owns Fox Sports.

“Fox is a huge company with huge resources,” said KTLA General Manager John Reardon. “They’ve done a good job marketing the team, and we’ve done a good job marketing the team.”

Fox Sports and KTLA have been aggressively promoting Brown, as well as established stars like outfielder Raul Mondesi. A KTLA promotional spot with Vin Scully and two guys sitting on a couch at Dodger Stadium was such a hit that it is shown on the park’s screen at the start of every home game.

“We’re trying to remind people that we have Dodgers baseball for free,” said KTLA spokeswoman Carolyn Aguayo. “And ratings are up 10 or 11 percent.”

Many of the games not aired by KTLA can be seen on Fox Sports West 2, which increased the number of its televised games to 80 this year, up from 40 last year. But 800,000-plus local cable subscribers as of July 6 may be blacked out of the 40 Dodgers games Fox plans to air during the second half of the season.

That situation looms because of a dispute between Fox Sports and two of L.A.’s largest cable service providers, MediaOne and Charter Communications.

“The existing contract calls for 40 games and a surcharge for additional games,” said Scott Tenney, MediaOne vice president of marketing. “The 40 games contracted for, we assume, would be spread out over the season. Instead, (Fox Sports) crammed them into the first part of the season and held us hostage. We’re still talking, but it looks unlikely that we’ll carry the extra games.”

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