Why should anyone accept Currie's claim about Wake's football TV ratings? Did he cite a source for that?
There are studies out there of college football TV ratings, though all of them are imperfect in some manner. However I have not seen one where Wake ranks above NCSU.
Earlier in this thread, I cited this study and several people claimed that it was completely invalid because it did not count games on conference networks (such as ACCN)--apparently those games aren't rated. I agree that this is a weakness of the study, but looking at the ranking, does anyone think that it would be significantly different if such ratings were available. I don't think so.
Here's a link to another study from an earlier year. This article is more clear on the problems of trying to measure and rank all the teams.
We take a look at EVERY FBS team and also compare league by league! Who's the top ten in viewership? How do the ACC schools rank relative to each other? How big a boost does Alabama give the SEC West? It's all inside.
sicem365.com
In both cases, I think Wake comes out looking very good, especially considering all the weaknesses that it has as a TV draw (football history, private school, small enrollment and alumni base etc.). But I won't accept Currie's claim about Wake outranking NCSU and I don't think anyone else should without knowing what study or ratings source he is using.
In any case, it's still true that neither UNC, NCSU, Duke or Wake are among the titans of college football TV ratings. In the ACC, like it of not, those schools are still Clemson, FL State and Miami.