The Chargers made some history Sunday, and they did it, in all places, San Diego.

The Nielsen TV rating for the Chargers-Dolphins game on KFMB Channel 8 was measured at 12.3. That’s the lowest rating for a Chargers game in this market since at least 1998, according to Union-Tribune records, which date back to the start of the 1999 season.

The previous low in that time came on Dec. 10, 2000, when a Chargers-Ravens game in Baltimore earned a 13.9 rating. Another game earlier that season, at St. Louis, had a 14.0 rating. The average rating for that season (when the Chargers finished 1-15) was 17.9, the only time between 1999-2016 that the average was below 20.

Sunday’s rating was about 53 percent lower than the 26.2 number for a Week 2 Sunday afternoon game last year between the Chargers and Jaguars, although it should be noted there was no other NFL game on TV at the same time a year ago. On Sunday, the local Fox affiliate aired a game between Dallas and Denver, which had a 7.2 rating.


From 2004-14, the average season rating for local Chargers telecasts ranged between 26.0 (2007) and 31.6 (2010). With talk of the Chargers possibly leaving San Diego, combined with the team losing most of its games, the average dropped to 25.6 in 2015 and 24.4 in 2016.

The San Diego rating for last Monday’s season opener on ESPN was 17.7. In previous years, games played in that time slot (7:20 p.m. on the first Monday of the season) had ranged between 36 and 38 (although they also were simulcast on broadcast TV, which gets higher ratings).

This year’s ratings in San Diego are more in line with past ratings in similar time slots for most NFL games. In fact, Sunday’s early game between Philadelphia and Kansas City, which aired absent any NFL competition on Fox, pulled a 12.0 rating in San Diego.

Chargers telecasts are still faring better in San Diego than the team’s new home, Los Angeles, where Sunday’s game earned a 5.1 rating. The Rams-Redskins game aired at the same time on Fox and had a 7.7 rating. (The Eagles-Chiefs game had a 7.6 rating in Los Angeles.)


The rating is the percentage of the total potential audience. One rating point in San Diego, the nation’s 28th-largest TV market, equals 10,657 homes, according to Nielsen. One rating point in Los Angeles, the No. 2 market, equals 54,768 homes.


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jay.posner@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutposner

UPDATES:

11:30 a.m.: This article was updated with additional ratings information.