College Football Week 12: ESPN Posts Two Highest Saturday Overnights and Best Saturday Streaming Audience of the Season

· Overall: ESPN Sees Overnight and Streaming Growth Across All Windows; More than Doubles in 75% of Game Windows

· Overall: ESPN and ABC Combine to Air Top 5 Overnights across all Networks

ESPN delivered its two highest Saturday overnights and its highest Saturday streaming audience this season during college football's week 12. Overall, the network experienced overnight and streaming growth in all four game windows and more than doubled its audience in in 75% of those windows.

Ohio State at Michigan States Sets Saturday Highs for ESPN

Ohio State at Michigan State (noon ET) delivered ESPN's best overnight and streaming audience for a Saturday game airing on the network this season. The Buckeyes-Spartans' 4.2 overnight was up 180% to the comparable 2015 game window (North Carolina at Virginia), while the streaming audience of 147,000 average viewers and total of 635,000 unique viewers watching 30,140,000 minutes was up 243%, 134%, and 201%, respectively, to the Tar Heels-Cavaliers game. Columbus was the No.1 local market with a 31.6 rating. The complete top 10 markets:

Rank Rating Market
1 31.6 Columbus
2 21.9 Dayton
3 19.6 Cleveland
4 13.9 Detroit
5 11.0 Cincinnati
6 8.9 Birmingham
7 6.2 Louisville
8 5.9 Greenville
9 5.8 West Palm Beach
10 5.7 Ft. Myers

Indiana at Michigan is a Top Overnight for ESPN in 2016; Top 5 Streamed Game Too

Indiana at Michigan (3:30 p.m. on ESPN) delivered a 3.2 overnight, ESPN's second best Saturday overnight of the season, trailing only the before mentioned Ohio State-Michigan State game. The Hoosiers-Wolverines game had a streaming audience of 131,000 average viewers with a total of 478,000 unique viewers watching 26,280,000 minutes, a top five streamed game this season for a game airing on ESPN. The overnight was 167% to the comparable game window last season (USC at Oregon) and the streaming audience was up 417%, 234%, and 441%, respectively, in average minute audience, unique viewers and total minutes watched to the same Trojans-Ducks game.

Additional Week 12 Highlights:

· USC at UCLA (10:30 p.m. on ESPN): 1.8 overnight, the best for a Pac-12 game in week 12 across all networks and the best for a 10 p.m. or later kickoff this season across all networks. The Bruins-Trojans game had a streaming audience of 66,000 average viewers and a total of 215,000 viewers watching 13,352,000 minutes, up 290%, 141% and 328%, respectively, to last year's comparable window (Cal at Stanford).

· Florida at LSU (1 p.m. on SEC Network) : SEC Network's most-streamed Saturday game ever with 71,000 average viewers and 362,000 total unique viewers watching 14.8 million minutes.*

· Chattanooga at Alabama (7 p.m. on ESPN2): Ties ESPN2's best overnight of the season (1.3); Streaming average minute audience and total unique viewers up 52% and 79%, respectively, to comparable window (Tennessee at Missouri).

· College Football Week 12: Overall, ESPN/ABC aired top five overnights across all networks.

*Please note: SEC Network is not rated and thus no overnight available.

All ESPN streaming numbers are preliminary. Final numbers will be available this week