NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
ABC debuts the new era of "Monday Night Football" in a preseason game Monday with commentators wondering if John Madden's addition to the booth can "save" the 33-year old program supposedly in a mid-life crisis.
But the truth is that the program is doing just fine from a business sense - it is host network ABC that actually needs saving. Outside of its flagship football game, the network is about as popular with advertisers as comedian Dennis Miller was with critics and football fans during his two-year stint in the show's broadcast booth.
The network, owned by Walt Disney Co. (DIS: Research, Estimates), trails the other three major networks in various key ratings demographics, such as adults ages 18 to 49 during prime time. Monday Night Football is the one of few ABC shows to buck that trend. It still gathers more male viewers ages 25 to 54 than any other show on the planet, reaching one third more homes than ABC's next highest rated show - "The Practice."
Yes, the show is capturing ratings about half of what it saw in its glory days. But in this age of cable and other entertainment competition that would have made Howard Cosell's toupee stand on end, the show is more important than ever to its network.
"I would say for Disney and ABC, Monday Night Football is the only thing that hasn't gone down significant in ratings and profitability. It's one of the things holding the network up," said Paul Kim, media analyst for Kaufman Brothers.
That doesn't mean the show is a money maker. Like virtually all high-profile sporting events, the show with its $4.5 billion in rights fees over eight seasons is a money loser for the network.
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| Al Michaels, left, and John Madden, become the 13 different pairing in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth. |
But the loss is probably not as great as it appears at first blush. Monday Night Football helps the ratings of ABC affiliates' local news broadcasts, and helps assuage and perhaps even hang onto some affiliates who might otherwise be tempted to jump to another network.
Despite the ratings decline, Monday Night Football last season finished just below CBS's "Survivor," generally seen as a huge hit, to be the No. 10 show overall in the last television season. It's really the only way the troubled network has of reaching a major audience week in and week out, and it gives the network the right to show every third Super Bowl, still the ratings Everest for broadcasters.
More importantly it has allowed Disney to argue it is the place to be for advertisers who want to reach key male viewers.
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Disney is able to sell Monday Night Football and the NFL's Sunday night games on ESPN (also a Disney property), the nation's top rated cable program, as well as National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League games. That makes it the only company that can offer beer, car and other advertisers the chance to advertise on all four major team sports.
"ESPN is where you really make the money," said Kim. "You're definitely losing money on Monday Night Football, but it's important for advertisers who can now buy spots all year round on all four major sports."
Whether replacing much-maligned comedian Miller in the broadcast booth with revered longtime football analyst Madden will make a difference in ratings it tough to say, even for ABC at this point. Disney President and Chief Operating Officer Robert Iger told analysts Thursday that the upfront ad sales for the show are up 8 to 10 percent over this point a year ago, although part of that is probably due to an improved advertising market that Iger said saw overall sales gain 5 percent.
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History suggests that if there's a lift from Madden joining the show, it will be a short term one. Ratings gained when Don Meredith, one of the original members of the broadcast team, returned to the booth in 1977 after a three-year absence. But the ratings slipped again the next two seasons.
Controversial broadcaster Howard Cosell's departure after the 1983 season led to a continuation of the ratings slide in 1984, but the show saw its greatest one-season jump in ratings the following year. That wasn't due to the one-year experiment of adding Joe Namath to the team.
But even if the ratings don't get as large as Madden's famous waist line, it's too soon to write the obits for the most successful sports show in broadcast history. ABC would be thrilled to have problems like it has at Monday Night Football on more of its shows.
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