Special events have viewers. Rest of the time it doesn't. Overall ratings are the average for the year. I'm sure if you look at NBCs Superbowl ratings, you could say they are very highly rated. But they are average with the rest.
And although they may be #43 on list of cable channels, we have no idea as to price per subscriber. Plus a number of these channels I would safely assume are part of a package (think you can drop ESPN2 and keep ESPN or Disney XD and keep Disney?)
They could be #10 for all we know.
Verizon stated when channel was dropped that carrying the channel no longer made business sense. As they have done with other channels since then.