(SUNRISE, FL) — Fox Sports Net announced today that its Florida Marlins’ telecasts averaged a 4.5 television household rating during the month of April in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale DMA, the highest ever April average rating for Marlins games on the regional sports network. The 4.5 average rating is a 96% increase over last season’s April average. Previously, the highest average rating for April was a 4.0 set in 1997, the year of the Marlins first World Series Championship.
“Marlins fans are already turning-out and tuning-in in record numbers to watch the defending 2003 World Series Champions,” said Jeff Genthner, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Fox Sports Net Florida. “Showcasing speed, pitching, defense and clutch hitting; Marlins baseball has established its own identity on the field, and baseball fans throughout South Florida are loving it.”
One rating point represents approximately 15,500 television households in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale DMA, which consists of Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties. All Marlins home games televised on Fox Sports Net are simulcast in Spanish, accessible by using the SAP feature available on most television sets.
Fox Sports Net Florida reaches over 5 million households in Florida. Fox Sports Net Florida’s programming includes Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers, the University of Miami, and the University of South Florida, The Best Damn Sports Show Period and NASCAR. Fox Sports Net Florida is managed by Rainbow Sports Networks.
Rainbow Sports Networks is a division of Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC). Fox Sports Net reaches more than 80 million households nationwide and is a service of National Sports Partners, equally owned by Rainbow Media Holdings LLC and Fox Entertainment Group. Rainbow Sports Networks incorporates Rainbow’s 50% ownership in Fox Sports Net and Fox Sports National Advertising and the ownership and management of Fox Sports Net regional networks in five of the nation’s largest markets: Chicago, San Francisco, New England, Ohio and Florida.