NEW YORK -- The Daytona 500 drew its highest TV rating since 1979 -- the first time NASCAR's season-opening race was shown live from start to finish on network television.
Fox Sports' telecast Sunday drew a 10.0 rating and 24 share, with about 32
million viewers tuning in, according to figures released Tuesday by Nielsen
Media Research.
The rating represents a jump of 19 percent from last year's race on CBS, and
is the top figure since CBS drew a 10.4 in its Daytona debut 22 years ago.
Fox's TV audience held relatively steady from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. ET, then
jumped for the last 1½ hours of the broadcast.
Each rating point represents a little more than 1 million U.S. television
households, while share is the percentage of in-use TVs tuned to a given
program.
AP NEWS
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