For the second straight week, the Ravens got an exhibition-game win on the field, but a mixed result in the ratings.
Saturday afternoon's Ravens meeting with the New York Giants on Channel 11 garnered an 8.3 Nielsen rating and 26 share of the audience, according to Sharon Walz, Channel 11's ratings researcher and this week's sole and official "Media Watch" ratings supplier.
The game was easily the most-watched sports program of the weekend and the share -- or percentage of televisions that are on at a given time -- was larger than the preseason opener the week before against the Philadelphia Eagles on Channel 54.
Also, Saturday's Ravens game attracted more than twice the audience (3.4/7) that the San Francisco-San Diego clash, airing on Channel 45 that night, pulled in, as well as doubling the number for the Giants-Cleveland Browns game (4.2/9) a year earlier.
But with token counterprogramming and a new, successful Baltimore team playing -- albeit on a spectacular summer Saturday afternoon -- the game's 8.3 rating seems, well, disappointing.
By the way, last Saturday's game did a preliminary 7.4 rating in Cleveland, the old home of the Ravens. Just thought you'd want to know.
Doing double duty
Within minutes of finishing his Fox baseball assignment in Philadelphia on Saturday, Josh Lewin was winging his way to Chicago to take a turn behind the mike for the Orioles-White Sox broadcast on WBAL (1090 AM).
In theory, things looked perfect for Lewin to get to Comiskey Park in time to do the third, fourth and seventh innings of Saturday night's game, spelling Fred Manfra.
In reality, Lewin, the station's sports director and fill-in Orioles announcer, ran into three daunting factors. First, the Orioles game was starting at 6: 05 Central time, and his flight into Chicago didn't arrive until 6: 10, which Lewin hadn't quite bargained for.
Next, the usual 25- to 30-minute drive from O'Hare Airport to Comiskey was elongated to 90 minutes because of an overturned truck on the Dan Ryan Expressway. Finally, Lewin got hit with the most unlikely piece of happenstance -- a briskly paced baseball game.
Luckily, he was able to keep score of the game in the car, so when he arrived late in the contest, Lewin was able to go right to work and do the seventh and eighth innings.
