Padres ratings up 22% over last year

Fox Sports San Diego announced yesterday via a Press Release that their Padres ratings were up again this season.  In fact April was their highest rated month ever.  It averaged a 5.43 HH rating which beat the previous high by 51%.  All the hype around the team will do that.  While the ratings dropped off once fans saw how badly the team sucked, they still held steady enough to increase the average rating for the season to 3.73 HH, an increase of 22%.

"We are very pleased to enjoy another year of strong double digit ratings growth," said Henry Ford, Senior Vice President and General Manager, FOX Sports San Diego. "FOX Sports San Diego continues to deliver high quality telecasts for our viewers, and results for our sponsors. Now, we turn our attention to a strong lineup of live events through the Fall and Winter."

Here's the season's Top 5 highest rated games.  All the games were early in the season.  This tells me that San Diego will tune in if there is even the slightest chance that they'll be good. After that we like to channel surf.

Unfortunately no statistics were provided for the number of house holds that muted the broadcast when Mark Sweeney crowded into the broadcast booth between the third and seventh inning.