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Saturday night again Other shorts: ESPN dumps Phillips after affair surfaces Oct 26, 2009 Sports rules Saturday night again Saturday is becoming sports night. For the fifth straight Saturday, sports led the night among adults 18-49 over the weekend. ABC earned its third first-place Saturday finish of the season with college football. The previous week Fox won with an American League Championship Series baseball game, and the week before that CBS won the night with a college football game. ABC’s regional coverage, which included games between USC and Oregon State or Missouri and Texas, led the network to a 1.4 average overnight rating for the night and a 4 share, according to Nielsen overnights, placing the network just ahead of Fox at 1.3/4. CBS was third for the night at 1.0/3, with Univision fourth at 0.8/3 and NBC fifth at 0.7/2. As a reminder, all ratings are based on live-plus-same-day DVR playback. Seven-day DVR data won’t be available for several weeks. Thirty-three percent of Nielsen households have DVRs. Also, ratings for ABC’s college football coverage are approximate as fast nationals measure timeslot and not actual program data. At 8 p.m. ABC led with a 1.7 for football, followed by Fox with a 1.3 for an hour of “Cops.” Univision was third with a 0.8 for the first of three hours of “Sabado Gigante,” CBS fourth with a 0.7 for a repeat of “CSI: NY” and NBC fifth with a 0.5 for a “Mercy” rerun. ABC was first again at 9 p.m. with a 1.3 for more football, with Fox second with a 1.2 for “America’s Most Wanted.” CBS was third with a 1.0 for “48 Hours Mystery,” Univision fourth with a 0.9 for “Sabado Gigante” and NBC fifth with a 0.6 for a repeat of “Trauma.” At 10 p.m. CBS took the lead with a 1.5 for another hour of “48 Hours Mystery,” while ABC slipped to second with a 1.2 for football. NBC was third with a 1.1 for a repeat of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and Univision fourth with a 0.8 for “Sabado Gigante.” CBS was first for the night among households with a 3.4 average overnight rating and a 6 share. ABC was second at 2.7/5, NBC and Fox tied for third at 2.3/4, and Univision fifth at 1.4/3. ESPN dumps Phillips after affair surfaces Steve Phillips has been booted from ESPN after admitting to an affair with a production assistant and, perhaps more seriously, causing a great amount of embarrassment for the cable sports network in the days after the affair became public. ESPN fired Phillips, an MLB analyst and part of its "Sunday Night Baseball" team, yesterday, four days after the New York Post broke the story of Phillips' affair with a 22-year-old co-worker. The network issued a statement saying in part, "His ability to be an effective representative for ESPN has been significantly and irreparably damaged, and it became evident it was time to part ways." Indeed, the former New York Mets general manager became the focus of intense scrutiny from blogs such as Deadspin that detailed a sensational letter sent by Brooke Hundley, the PA in question, to Phillips' wife, Marni. Turns out Phillips has a history of this sort of thing; he was placed on leave from the Mets 11 years ago after being accused of sexual harassment and having affairs with co-workers. Fox News' Ailes: I'm not running for president Fox News Channel founder Roger Ailes won't be running for president in 2012, which is a disappointment for anyone who had envisioned how coverage of that race would play out on the cable news networks. A spokesman for Ailes told Politico, which first floated the idea of an Ailes candidacy, that the president and CEO of FNC will not be pursuing a bid. According to Politico, Ailes said, "This country needs fair and balanced news more now than ever before, so I’m going to decline a run for the presidency. Besides, I can’t take the pay cut." The original story, which ran Friday, wasn't entirely facetious. It detailed numerous Ailes friends and associates who had urged him to run, some of whom even did so on the record. 'Dunham' posts Comedy Central's top premiere Some folks think dummies rule TV. That was literally true Thursday night on Comedy Central. The 9 p.m. premiere of “The Jeff Dunham Show,” starring the popular ventriloquist, averaged 5.3 million total viewers and 3.0 million viewers 18-49, both all-time network records for a series premiere. Making the feat all the more impressive is that fact that it happened against some stiff broadcast competition, including Fox’s coverage of the American League Championship Series, as well as original episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC and “The Office” on NBC. The premiere also led Comedy Central to its most-watched and highest-rated night of the year. Including replays on the same night, 7.9 million total viewers watched the premiere.
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