Golf Channel Posts Record April Again

Golf Channel says it had its most-watched April, thanks in part to a big hand from "The King."

Arnie, the channel's three-part documentary on the life of golf great Arnold Palmer, provided a 29% boost in primetime viewership year over year, with an average 471,000 viewers per episode, and its total-day viewership average of 130,000 was up 2% over April 2013, though that was after three years of double-digit increases.

Golf pointed out that the increase was despite no Tiger Woods at the Masters, which is usually a big draw, though Masters week was still the channel's most-watched week of the year.

GolfChannel.com's gains were even more impressive, though final traffic numbers are not in yet. According to preliminary figures through April 28, April page views were already up 53%, unique visitors up 39%, and video starts up 30%.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.