Turner Sports, which provided extensive multi-platform coverage of the 91st PGA Championship in Chaska, Minn., announced today that it delivered tremendous ratings, households and key demo growth for TNT’s 18 hours of television coverage and earned record-setting numbers with PGA.com’s comprehensive online coverage. For four straight days, TNT also saw dramatic increases for its television coverage, which included exclusive first- and second-round coverage, along with three hours of early coverage each for the third and final rounds.

TNT ratings success includes:

• TNT’s exclusive coverage of the first two rounds of the PGA Championship averaged a 1.3 US HH rating, an 86% increase over last year.
• Based on Nielsen Fast Nationals, TNT’s coverage of the final two rounds on Saturday, Aug. 15 and Sunday, Aug. 16 averaged a 1.5 US HH rating, a 67% increase over last year.
• For four days of coverage, TNT averaged 1.4 US HH rating, a 75% increase over last year.
• In addition, TNT saw growth in key demos including:
  • Total Viewers: +79% (1,876,000 vs. 1,050,000)
  • P18-49: +88% (571,000 vs. 303,000)
  • P25-54: +111% (692,000 vs. 328,000)
  • M18-49: +81% (415,000 vs. 230,000)
  • M25-54: +103% (500,000 vs. 246,000)

PGA.com recorded its highest four-days in-site history for its traffic, page views and video streams, marking the most successful four days in PGA.com’s four-year history of providing live video streaming for the PGA Championship.  Highlights of PGA.com’s record-breaking numbers for the 2009 PGA Championship include:

• A record number of unique users for the PGA Championship with 1.4 million average daily uniques, a 94% increase from 2008.
• A record 206 million total page views for four days of coverage, a 68% increase from 2008.
• Turner Sports’ online golf portfolio, which includes PGA.com, Yahoo! and PIP streams, delivered a total of 3.4 million video streams, including a record 2.4 million live player streams, a 204% increase from 2008.
• PGA.com also set single-day site records on Friday, Aug. 14 when it recorded 1.7 million unique users, more than 66 million page views and a record-setting 1.3 million live player and on-demand video streams.

Turner Network Television (TNT), one of cable’s top-rated networks, is television’s destination for drama and home to such original series as the acclaimed and highly popular detective drama The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick; Saving Grace, starring Holly Hunter; Raising the Bar, with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Gloria Reuben and Jane Kaczmarek; Leverage, starring Timothy Hutton; HawthoRNe, with Jada Pinkett Smith; and Dark Blue, starring Dylan McDermott.  TNT also presents such powerful dramas as Bones, Cold Case, Law & Order, Without a Trace, ER and Charmed; broadcast premiere movies; compelling primetime specials, such as the Screen Actors Guild Awards®; and championship sports coverage, including NASCAR and the NBA.  TNT is available in high-definition.

PGA.com is the production alliance of The PGA of America and managing partner Turner Sports.  It is the official online destination for The PGA and home to the PGA Championship, the Senior PGA Championship, The PGA Grand Slam of Golf and The Ryder Cup.  A leader and innovator in broadband golf coverage, the site successfully launched its PGA.com Pipeline broadband product in 2006, garnering record numbers for the site in both 2006 and 2007, with the coverage receiving more than 2 million streams during the course of the 2007 PGA Championship.  In 2007 PGA.com Pipeline was nominated for an Emmy® by the National Television Academy.  Turner Sports and The PGA formed a multi-year alliance in 2002, which was recently extended to 2019, with a mission to serve the golfing public, PGA Professionals and golf trade with products and services, such as the PGA.com Value Guide, that inspire, direct and facilitate participation in the sport nationwide. 

Turner Sports, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., presents some of the best and most popular sporting events worldwide and is a leader in televised and online sports programming.  With events airing on TBS and TNT, Turner Sports’ line-up includes NASCAR and NASCAR.COM, the NBA, Major League Baseball, professional golf, PGATOUR.COM and PGA.com.  Turner Sports and the NBA also jointly manage NBA Digital, which includes NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA League Pass, NBADLeague.com and WNBA.com. 

Sources: Omniture (2008-09 traffic and 2009 streams), CDN Server Logs (2008 streams), AOL Server Logs (2007 streams), Fireclick (2007 traffic). Television: Nielsen Media Research, actuals based on Live + Same Day data stream (08/13/2009 - 08/16/2009 vs. 08/07/2008 – 08/10/2008).