FOX CEO James Murdoch believes oversaturation is as much to blame for the NFL's drop in ratings than any other factors.

“There’s a question mark for the NFL, which is just to think hard about how they’re licensing,” Murdoch said at the Paley International Council Summit in New York, via Jason Lynch of AdWeek.com. “So I do think the proliferation of Thursday availability — and the proliferation of football generally — does mean that you’re asking a lot from customers to watch Thursday. And then they watch a lot more college football game on Saturdays, and then on Sundays, and then on Monday Night Football, etc. It’s a lot. So I do think that preserving the scarcity value of those events and that audience is something that is worth thinking about.”

NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart disagreed with the substance of Murdoch’s assessment.

“We are not oversaturated, though we will always look at that,” Lockhart said.