Tiger’s Apology Drives Big Ratings for ESPN, Golf Channel

As expected Tiger Woods’ apology statement last Friday roped in huge ratings ESPN’s plethora of networks as well as the Golf Channel.

ESPN notched a 1.4 rating during Wood’s live statement concerning his extramarital affairs – three times what the network posted in that time slot 24 hours earlier (0.4). ESPN2’s audience was 48 percent larger than the day before and ESPNEWS’s was four times larger.

Golf Channel scored its second largest audience of 2010, averaging a 0.67 household rating with 745,000 total viewers during Woods’ statement. That ranked as the the network’s best non-tournament telecast since the Golf Central PreGame on Aug. 30, 2009. It also marked the second-highest rated program of 2010 for Golf Channel, trailing only the 0.54 rating it put up on Jan. 30 during coverage of the Farmers Insurance Open from San Diego.

ESPN.com, ESPN Mobile, and ESPN Radio.com also scored big with the Tiger apology.

During the 60-hour period following the statement, ESPN.com logged more than 5 million page views and 1.6 million video starts of Woods-related content. The live stream of Wood’s apology brought in an audience three times larger than its previous high, making it the largest concurrent audience ever on ESPN.com.

ESPN Mobile logged 1.1 million page views of news surrounding Woods on the mobile Web site on its way to the biggest mobile video day of 2010.  Video on the news about Woods from Friday accounted for three of the top six clips of February.  The full 13-minute statement had an average time spent viewing on mobile of more than 9 minutes and 15 seconds.

By the end of Friday, ESPNRadio.com had already logged in its largest concurrent streaming audience for a single event ever in its 10-year history as the statement was heard by 85,000 listeners, 5,000 of which were logged through the ESPN Radio app on iPhone and iPod Touch mobile devices.