Courtesy the St. Louis Post Dispatch

(October 15, 2010) The Cardinals couldn't beat the Boston Red Sox even once in the 2004 World Series, but this season they finally unseated them as Major League Baseball's television ratings king for games shown on teams' local cable/satellite packages.

The 130 Cards contests televised by Fox Sports Midwest were seen in an average of 9.5 percent of the homes in the market, according to The Nielsen Co., well ahead of second-place finisher Minnesota, which had an 8.8 rating in the Twin Cities. Next were Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Tampa.

Boston, which had led the way for six consecutive seasons, had a disappointing, injury-marred season and in turn the rating there tumbled by 38 percent, to 5.9.

Despite the Cardinals falling from serious contention by mid-September, FSM had its best-rated year in the 15 seasons the Redbirds have had a widely available cable/satellite TV package, surpassing the pervious mark of 9.2 that was set in 2005.

Even with the lofty performance on FSM, the hard numbers show that many more people watched, on average, the portion of the team's television package carried on over-the-air, or so-called "free TV." The 18 games on KSDK (Channel 5) averaged a 12.3 rating — about 30 percent better than FSM, which is similar to the margin over the last decade.

But despite much higher over-the-air viewership, the club eliminates that element next season as its entire TV package goes to FSM, which can use subscriber fees to pay more for rights than an over-air station that doesn't have that revenue source. So while the Cardinals have appeased many of their fans who are outside the reach of their radio network by going back to the powerhouse signal of KMOX (1120 AM) next season, they are making the exact opposite move with their TV package by eliminating the portion that served those who don't have cable/satellite service.

The impact in St. Louis has been documented in this space before, and the elimination of the Cards' TV network probably will be even more profound in outlying markets in which the number of people who buy cable/satellite is much less than the 89 percent of homes that subscribe here.

One of those locations is Joplin, Mo., where Redbirds games have aired for 23 years on KGCS.

"Needless to say, viewers who watch that way are not happy," said Judy Stiles, a native St. Louisan and University of Missouri graduate who runs that station. "This region has a large number of households who are broadcast-only viewers.

"They're losing a little of the fan base," she said of the Cards. "You try to explain to people it's not our decision, it's the team's."

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