NASCAR TV ratings continue to fall

UPDATE The overnight rating of 10.1 rating/20 share held up as the final rating for the Daytona 500, down 11% from 2006. The pre-race show came in at 6.9/16 share and the post-race show 8.9/16 share. The 1-hour Toyota special "Chasing Sunday: The Race to the Cup" on Fox on Sunday garnered a 2.3/6 share on FOX.

02/19/07 Despite all the hype and media attention from ESPN and FOX, NASCAR continues to lose popularity, building the downward trend we saw all of last year.

Fox says this year's Daytona 500 race earned an overnight 10.1 rating/20 market share and an average audience of 17.53 million viewers, according to "fast national" figures from Nielsen Media Research. The network says at estimated 33.7 million Americans watched at least part of the race. These overnight ratings represent a drop of 11% from last year's NBC ratings of 11.3/23, and viewership of 19.35 million viewers.

Brian France blamed NBC's losing interest (after deciding not to renew with NASCAR after losing their shirt) for lasts year's ratings drop but in fact FOX has come in significantly lower. France also predicted that with the added ESPN NASCAR coverage that ratings would increase this year. Again he was wrong. The industry will wait to see if this trend continues throughout the year. With costs rising the series cannot afford for their ratings plunge to continue another year.