The Houston Texans recent improved play is not being noticed yet in Austin, at least according to this letter from a local Austin television programing director to Texans fan Brian over at Longhorn Law:
The last Texans game we aired (last Sunday) was tuned-in by just 21,000 households in Austin (a city with 589,000 households). By comparison, the Titans game we aired on Oct 8th (after Vince Young became quarterback) was watched by over 53,000 households (152% more football fanís homes). At one point during that game there were as many as 68,000 households tuned in. It was the most-watched ìearlyî game weíve aired all season. Actually, that game was watched by more Austin fans than any Texans game weíve aired going all the way back to October of last season – with two notable exceptions. The first is when the Texans played the Cowboys on October 15th (which you could expect to be highly watched) and the other, honestly, was when the Texans played the Titans on October 29th. [. . .]
So, where does all this leave us now? To try and answer that, we need to go back to the start. In the Texansí first season KEYE aired every Texans game we could get our hands on. In the second season we did the same thing, no matter how bad the actual football games were, and in the third season we did it yet again. (No one could claim that KEYE hadnít done its best to put Texans games on the air in Austin).
In the fourth season, last year, we aired every Texans game we could – even after it was abundantly clear they would have their worst season to date. What was once just a steady flow of email to the station (questioning why the heck we were airing Texans games when there was much better competition) had become a roar that we simply could no longer ignore. In that season we aired every Texans game we could in August, September, October, and November. Our last Texans game was December 4th with just 15,000 households watching, and then we moved on to other games that had actual play-off implications. The very next non-Texans game we aired that year was tuned-in by almost 75,000 homes. In other words, we did the best we could do.
Hang in there, KEYE!