World Series not a big hit with viewers

Fox’s World Series coverage drew its lowest viewership since 2014 but accounted for six of the week’s eight most-watched programs.

The Boston Red Sox’s five-game victory over the Dodgers averaged 14.35 million viewers, the least for a World Series since 2014, when the San Francisco Giants’ seven-game victory over the Kansas City Royals averaged 13.9 million viewers, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen on Tuesday.

Viewership was comparable to the other five-game Series since then, the Royals’ win over the New York Mets in 2015, which averaged 14.53 million viewers.

Viewership customarily builds the longer a Series goes on, with a Game 7 drawing large viewership.

Viewership was down 23.4% from the Houston Astros’ seven-game victory over the Dodgers in the 2017 Series, which included an average viewership of 28.29 million viewers for Game 7.

Viewership for most forms of programming has decreased, in part because of competition from streaming programs, including streams of the same shows on traditional television.

Boston’s title-clinching victory in Game 5 Sunday was the most-watched program between Oct. 22 and Sunday, averaging 17.63 million viewers.

Each of the other games were the most-watched programs of their night, while Sunday’s 12-minute World Series pregame show was third for the week, averaging 14.90 million viewers.

Fox also received a boost from its NFL coverage as it finished first in the network race for the first time in the five-week-old 2018-19 primetime television season.