Consider it the least surprising news you’ll read all year: Television ratings in San Diego for Chargers telecasts declined more than 40 percent in the first season after the team’s move to Los Angeles.
Including Sunday’s season finale against the Raiders, which earned a 16.8 Nielsen rating on KFMB Channel 8, the 16 games averaged a 14.2 rating in San Diego, the team’s home for the previous 56 years.
That was nearly 42 percent lower than the average of 24.4 for the 2016 season and almost 47 percent lower than the five-year average of 26.7 for 2012-16.
From 2004-16, the average season rating for local Chargers telecasts ranged between 24.4 (2016) and 31.6 (2010).
In addition to the move, another reason for a portion of the decline was that Chargers games in previous years very rarely faced head-to-head TV competition from other NFL telecasts. That was not the case on several Sundays this season.
Even with the decline, throughout the season Chargers telecasts earned higher ratings than other NFL games shown in San Diego, even in head-to-head matchups. On Sunday, for instance, the ratings for the three other games televised here ranged from 2.1 for Rams-Niners to 7.0 for Jets-Patriots.
The highest-rated Chargers telecast this season was the Monday night opener in September at Denver (17.7), just ahead of the Thanksgiving telecast against Dallas (17.6). The only other game to get a higher rating than the finale was the first game against the Raiders, in October (17.3).
The rating is the percentage of the total potential audience. One rating point in San Diego, the nation’s 29th-largest TV market, equals 10,028 homes, according to Nielsen.
Here are the ratings for all 16 telecasts this season:
9/11 at Denver 17.7
9/17 Miami 12.3
9/24 Kansas City 16.0
10/1 Philadelphia 12.5
10/8 at NY Giants 12.7
10/15 at Oakland 17.3
10/22 Denver 15.9
10/29 at New England 14.1
11/12 at Jacksonville 15.1
11/19 Buffalo 10.4
11/23 at Dallas 17.6
12/3 Cleveland 16.3
12/10 Washington 13.0
12/17 at Kansas City 8.7 (shown only on NFL Network)
12/24 at NY Jets 10.6
12/31 Oakland 16.8
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