Guess you could say New England Sports Network is a big hit when it comes to baseball.

For the third consecutive season, NESN is the highest-rated regional sports network in baseball, according to network promotions and public relations director Gary Roy.

New England’s most-watched network posted a 10.6 average household rating for Boston Red Sox broadcasts in the Boston designated market area (DMA), according to NESN. That rating is almost 20 percent better than the second-highest regional network rating by Fox Sports Midwest in St. Louis.

Rating is the percentage of possible households in a specific market tuned to a specific program. Since the Boston DMA is credited with having 2,375,000 TV households in the most recent marketing survey, the 10.6 figure – the second-best rating in NESN’s 23-year history – translates roughly into 251,750 households turned into Red Sox TV broadcasts on an average day.

NESN Red Sox telecasts were the top-rated programs in Boston’s DMA 83 times this season, meaning 55 percent of those telecasts were beating every primetime show on every major broadcast and cable network in that market.

That popularity aided NESN’s pregame and postgame shows, ratings-wise, as well. The pregame show’s ratings increased 21 percent from a year ago with a 1.7 household rating average. The postgame show jumped 10 percent to a 4.3 this season.

Calling all future sportscasters

Fox Sports Net New England is once again searching for young, prospective sportscasters as it launches its annual FSN FanCasters program for the fourth time.

The program, open to students ages 13-18 who are interested in a career in the media, starts Wednesday with the network’s broadcast of the Boston Celtics 7:30 p.m. home-opener against the New Orleans Hornets. To enter, students must send an entry form and videotape of themselves reading an audition script to FSNNE.

Winners will be chosen based on their TV presence and the video quality of their tape. FanCaster tool kits including entry forms, scripts, and rules are available at www.fsnnewengland.com. Entry tapes must be labeled with the student’s name, age, school, home phone number, and address and submitted no later than April 1, 2007.

FSSNE will select 14 students through the course of the season to tape on-camera introductions of the Celtics “Heroes Among Us” honorees that will be aired just before tipoff of each Celtics home game.

NESN keeps Beanpot simmering

New England Sports Network will extend its broadcast history with the annual Beanpot Hockey Tournament through 2011 after agreeing to a new contract with the Beanpot Committee.

NESN began airing the Beanpot semifinals and final in 2002 and has continued each year since. This year, the 55-year-old tourney between Boston hockey schools Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern will be played Feb. 5 (semis) and Feb. 12 (championship).

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net