NEW YORK—Nielsen said it has started releasing rankings of the most-watched college football teams. In its first ranking, through the first 10 weeks of the season, Alabama is on top with 7.910 million viewers, followed by Georgia with 7.626 million viewers.

Nielsen also reported that through 10 weeks, college football viewership is up 4% from last year, comparing Big Data Plus Panel numbers to last year’s Big Data Plus Panel numbers from the same time period.

The Top 10 ranking showcases the teams with the highest viewership thus far this season, across ABC, Big Ten Network, CBS, The CW, the ESPN networks, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC and TNT.

Those teams were:

The overall popularity of college football was also highlighted in a separate Nielsen ranking of the top 25 live sports events. College football secured 10 of the top 25 slots for live sports for the week of October 27 - November 2.

During that week, the World Series delivered five of the top 11 spots, including the No. 2 and No. 4 ranked telecasts (Fox). Game 7 (ranked No. 2) delivered 26.9 million viewers, the most for a World Series game since 2017.

From Oct. 27 to Nov. 2, NFL football secured seven of the top 14 slots across six different networks/distributors: Fox, NBC, CBS, Prime Video, ABC, and ESPN. The most-watched NFL games aired in the CBS late window. Nearly 31 million viewers tuned in for the Nov. 2 Kansas City Chiefs-Buffalo Bills in the late window, making it the most-watched Week 9 game on CBS since 2007.

The Alabama Broadcasters Association has announced that Steve Kohn, engineering manager, at WSFA-TV Montgomery, has been named the group’s 2025 Engineer of the Year.

Steve Kohn, who has been with WSFA-TV for more than 40 years, recently played a major role in a studio move to a high-rise office complex in downtown Montgomery.

WSFA is an NBC affiliate owned by Gray Communications that is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. Kohn oversees the studio operations and their modern transmitter facility, which includes a 2,000-foot tower south of Montgomery.

Kohn will be honored at the ABA 2025 conference, Aug. 7-8 at Ross Bridge Resort in Birmingham.

“It's rare to find a broadcast engineer working his entire career at one station but that's our Steve,” said the station’s chief engineer, Morris Pollock. “As engineering manager, he continues to work with staff and vendors to design, integrate, document and maintain one of the finest news-producing TV stations in the country. Anyone watching WSFA has seen Steve's work, What they don't see is the passion Steve pours into WSFA each and every day".

WSFA general manager Mark Bunting added: “Steve Kohn has been and continues to be an integral part of our WSFA engineering team. His love for this industry and our television properties further confirm why he is an excellent choice in being selected as the ABA’s Engineer of the Year.”

The award recognizes excellence and innovation in broadcast engineering for an Alabama radio and/or television station. Criteria include development of new technology, leadership in education and contributions to broadcast engineering technical standards.

INDIANAPOLIS—The Society of Broadcast Engineers has announced the creation of a new chapter, Chapter 106 Panhandle, which will serve SBE members in the Florida Panhandle, as well as southern portions of Alabama and Georgia.

SBE’s Board of Directors approved the new chapter at the SBE National Meeting in October. This brings the total number of active chapters to 115 across the country.

Mark Johnson, CSRE, of Linkup Communications will serve as chair for the chapter; Cumulus Media’s Alan Lane, CSRE, AMD, DRB, will be vice chair; and Ricky Carter of Alarado Media will serve as the secretary/treasurer.

“The SBE members in the Florida Panhandle have been without a chapter for some time,” said Wayne Pecena, SBE president. “ The efforts of Mark Johnson and others in the area to organize a chapter have paid off, and all the chapter leaders and organizers deserve the credit for their work in establishing the chapter to serve SBE members in the area.”

WASHINGTON—Alabama is the latest state to sign up for the emergency broadband network FirstNet from AT&T, bringing more than half the states under the network. In addition, FirstNet has also announced that it has sent plans to U.S. territories Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.

For more information, read the full story on TVT’s sister publication B&C.