YES Network Winning The RSN Race

Via Multichannel News –

The New York Yankees won their 27th World Series title in 2009 and YES marked its seventh consecutive year as the most-watched regional sports network in total day, while also donning that crown in primetime.

YES, the TV home of the Bronx Bombers and the National Basketball Association’s New Jersey Nets, notched a 13.9% primetime rise to 82,000 TV households in the New York DMA in 2009 (Dec. 29, 2008 through Dec. 27, 2009), up from 72,000 in 2008, according to Nielsen data.

Gauged across total day (Monday through Sunday from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.), YES, in running its daypart-winning skein to seven years, scored 10.3% amelioration to 32,000 households last year, from 29,000 in 2008.

In both measures,YES outpaced NESN, the cable TV home of Yankees’ nemesis the Boston Red Sox, as well as the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins. YES officials, citing Nielsen data, said NESN averaged 76,000 households in primetime and 24,000 in total day during 2009 in the Boston DMA.

YES officials also noted that the RSN experienced year-over-year increases in both primetime and in total day among men 18+, guys 18 to 49 and males 25 to 54.

Within the New York area, YES’s primetime mark was the tops in TV sports, edging ESPN’s 81,000 TV households and the combined 80,000 average of SNY and MSG, according to officials at the RSN. In total day, YES officials said the service outperformed the trio of SNY, MSG and MSG+, which together had 30,000 households.

Not surprisingly, YES’s Yankees telecast led the way. The club’s game averaged a 4.62 household rating, up 9.5% from 2008, to rank as the RSN’s second-best mark with the club, behind a 4.69 average during the 2007 season.

YES’s primetime Yankees telecasts ranked first in the New York DMA on 42 of 45 straight game nights in such demos as men18+, 18-49 and 25-54, as well as adults 18 to 49 and 25 to 54.

The network’s Yankees post-game show ratings jumped 7% year-over-year, while Yankees Batting Practice Today ratings improved by a third.

Elsewhere, the network rang up gains with simulcasts of Mike’d Up: Francesa on the FAN, as well as the radio star’s Football Sunday with Mike Francesa show during the pro football season.

This is pretty amazing news – considering how many laments I have seen in comments left at this blog, through the years, about how other teams have better announcers than the Yankees, and about how the YES Network lacks non-game related original programming, and about how tired fans are seeing the same games played over-and-over again on Yankees Classics in addition to having to watch the same old played-out repeats of Yankeeography and CenterStage.

Then again, on the bright-side, it has been a while since anyone has seen Yogi & a Movie or the White Shadow on YES – and that’s a plus.

What this news does tell me is that, just as you can put a pig in a party dress and it’s still just a pig, on the other end of it, you can hide a huge diamond in a smelly sock and someone will still reach in there to get it…if they know it’s in there.

I guess that’s the beauty of the YES Network – broadcasting Yankees games allows them to do some things poorly, and other things not at all, and they can still do laps around the other RSNs because, no matter what, Yankees fans (and there are a lot of them) want to see their Yankees baseball.