M&M Sweeten ABC 'MNF' Ratings
(USA Today) -- Fans certainly were ready for John Madden's debut with Al Michaels on ABC's Monday Night Football. ABC garnered a 7.0 rating, 7.0% of the USA's TV homes, highest among the networks Monday night, for the New York Giants’ victory against the expansion Houston Texans in the Hall of Fame Game. The rating rose 11% above last year's 6.3 for Miami-St. Louis. San Francisco-New England in 2000, the first MNF game of Dennis Miller and Dan Fouts, earned a 7.3 rating. The expansion Cleveland Browns drew a higher 10.1 rat-ing in their Hall of Fame game against Dallas on ABC in 1999. The debut of the Texans undoubtedly contrib-uted to ABC's strong rating, with No. 11 market Houston registering a 25.3 rating. The combined ratings of large Texas markets Houston, No. 7 Dallas, No. 37 San Antonio and No. 58 Austin soared 80% from last year. But Madden's inaugural appearance with Michaels also figured to attract curious viewers to what many con-sider a TV football dream team. Michaels and Madden took much of the first half to find a comfort level then generally meshed for the remainder of the game. ABC's major problem was in the numerous technical glitches. ''Is there room for production improvement? Sure,'' said ABC producer Fred Gaudelli. ''That will all be fine. But when you look at the humor and excitement John brought to the booth, I was really pleased with the two guys. They gave us a taste Monday night of how good this is going to be.''
(USA Today) -- Fans certainly were ready for John Madden's debut with Al Michaels on ABC's Monday Night Football. ABC garnered a 7.0 rating, 7.0% of the USA's TV homes, highest among the networks Monday night, for the New York Giants’ victory against the expansion Houston Texans in the Hall of Fame Game. The rating rose 11% above last year's 6.3 for Miami-St. Louis. San Francisco-New England in 2000, the first MNF game of Dennis Miller and Dan Fouts, earned a 7.3 rating. The expansion Cleveland Browns drew a higher 10.1 rat-ing in their Hall of Fame game against Dallas on ABC in 1999. The debut of the Texans undoubtedly contrib-uted to ABC's strong rating, with No. 11 market Houston registering a 25.3 rating. The combined ratings of large Texas markets Houston, No. 7 Dallas, No. 37 San Antonio and No. 58 Austin soared 80% from last year. But Madden's inaugural appearance with Michaels also figured to attract curious viewers to what many con-sider a TV football dream team. Michaels and Madden took much of the first half to find a comfort level then generally meshed for the remainder of the game. ABC's major problem was in the numerous technical glitches. ''Is there room for production improvement? Sure,'' said ABC producer Fred Gaudelli. ''That will all be fine. But when you look at the humor and excitement John brought to the booth, I was really pleased with the two guys. They gave us a taste Monday night of how good this is going to be.''