Advertisers score another victory with 600 TV ratings

If you advertise in NASCAR, one of the key measuring sticks of your world is television ratings.

That's the holiest of numbers to folks who are trying to mass-communicate, and NASCAR, over the years, has made plenty of hay in terms of households, ratings points and audience share.

In recent seasons, however, there's been a decline in viewership of NASCAR racing. It's not a major dip; it's more like a plateau of late, and that has had the NASCAR people in a bit of a bind in terms of explaining it.

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Well, Memorial Day weekend is usually a cure for whatever ails the TV ratings, and this year certainly followed that trend.

According to FOX, Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway averaged a solid 4.7 rating with a 10 share (7.6 million viewers). That's up some 4 percent from last year's 4.5/10 for the same race.

Why is that significant? Well, it's the first time in three years that NASCAR's signature start-of-the-summer event has registered a ratings increase.

Sunday's race, won by Kasey Kahne in a thrilling finish (for everyone except the No. 20 Toyota team, that is) opened up at a 3.6/9 at 5:51 p.m. ET, and grew steadily for the night, peaking at a 6.1/11 and averaging nearly 9.9 million viewers (10-10:22 p.m.).

As you've no doubt heard, television ratings for nearly all sports have been flat to negative for much of the past couple of seasons. According to FOX, however, its ratings this season are up 5 percent over the first 12 races of the 2007 season. FOX is averaging a 5.9/12 (9.7 million viewers) compared to last year's 5.6/13.

In the somewhat arcane lingo of ratings, it wasn't all good news, but enough to make a difference in attitude, at least.

According to FOX, the results over the first 12 races of 2008 are "mixed."

Across key male demographics, FOX was down 7 percent on males ages 18-34 (2.7 vs. 2.9), flat among 18-49 (4.5), up 6 percent among NASCAR's core demo of males 25-54 (5.6 vs. 5.3), and up 4 percent on average audience (9.655 million viewers vs. 9.319 million).

Memorial Day weekend was once the playground of the Indianapolis 500, but in recent years the Coca-Cola 600 has routinely pounded the open-wheel classic in ratings points and share -- once the final ratings are in, that is.

Indy wins the overnight ratings battle almost every year, but by the time the final ratings are published, the Coca-Cola 600 comes out on top.

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Why? Well, as Palm Beach Post blogger Alan Tays puts it, it's sort of a red state-blue state kind of deal.

"... overnight ratings are compiled from 55 urban markets," Tays writes. "Big-city viewers have tended to favor Indy. But when the rest of the country is factored in, NASCAR wins.

"Since 2001, Indy has won the battle of overnight ratings every year. But only once, in 2005, has Indy's lead held up in the final ratings."

This year was no exception. The 92nd Indianapolis 500 drew a 5.1 national rating in those urban markets, up from 4.8 last year. The final ratings were not available as of deadline.

There are all sorts of factors that play into ratings, overnight or final. One of them is weather. Rain-delayed telecasts are usually not good for viewership, although they do provide advertisers with more impressions due to the length of the telecast.

For example, last year's Indianapolis 500 was delayed twice by rain, including a three-hour delay that set up a late finish -- also in the rain.

The Coca-Cola 600, meanwhile, went down to fuel mileage and gave Casey Mears his first Sprint Cup Series victory.

According to figures from the networks, the rise in ratings over last year is on a five-race upswing. The NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race (up 6 percent), Darlington (up 14 percent), Richmond (up 5.5 percent) and Talladega (up 2 percent) preceded the Coca-Cola 600.

Phoenix ratings were flat, Bristol was up 2 percent, Atlanta hit a five-year high and was up 23 percent, Las Vegas was up 13 percent and Daytona was up 1 percent.

There has to be some factoring in of other sporting events, of course, as football, the NCAA men's basketball tournament and the start of the baseball season are usually number generators for their respective networks.

But as was reported in March, the attitude among NASCAR TV types is positive, and advertisers are getting increased exposure.

One item that did surface on Memorial Day weekend -- the Indy telecast and the Coca-Cola 600 telecast were virtually back-to-back -- was Indy's use of the split-screen to show racing while commercials were being run.

That will be the next big hurdle to climb as first TNT and then ESPN/ABC take over the TV coverage from FOX.