Ratings jump for first two World Series games

The first two games of the 2013 World Series between the Cardinals and Red Sox have averaged 13.9 million viewers, a 13 percent increase over last year's television ratings.

For the second consecutive night, Game 2 on Thursday, which the Cards won, 4-2, led FOX to be the highest-rated network in prime time by a wide margin (36 percent in metered markets) and carried the network to its best Thursday-night prime-time mark since the "American Idol" finale in May.

Thursday's game drew 13.4 million viewers and a 8.3 fast national rating, according to Nielsen. The game drew a 42.0 rating in St. Louis -- the best for any game in the market since Game 7 of the 2011 World Series -- and a 37.3 rating in Boston. As the game neared the end, more than 70 percent of televisions in St. Louis were tuned into the game.

It was also the second night in a row the World Series was the most talked-about show on Twitter by a wide margin. Nearly four times as many people tweeted about the World Series than anything else on television (221,736 unique authors, 275 percent more than the second show), according to SocialGuide. There were 451,665 total tweets -- more than a 63 percent increase over Game 2 of last year's World Series.