NBC Promotes Game 7 Coverage

NEW YORK – June 11, 2009 – NBC Sports will broadcast the seventh and deciding game of the Stanley Cup Final between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins, tomorrow, 8 p.m. ET from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. The Penguins forced a Game 7 with a nail-biting 2-1 home-ice victory Tuesday night. 

Mike “Doc” Emrick (play-by-play), Eddie Olczyk (analyst) and Pierre McGuire (inside-the-glass analyst) call the action. McGuire will pull double duty in the on-location studio show alongside Mike Milbury and former NHL netminder Darren Pang. 

Detroit is seeking its 12th Stanley Cup championship in their long history as an NHL “Original Six” franchise, having won their 11th Cup last season against Pittsburgh; the Penguins have won two championships (1991 & 92). Twenty-one current Red Wings players (total of 40 times) have their names engraved on the Stanley Cup compared with just five for the Penguins. 

Your Call: Who Should Replace Marc Crawford at CBC

Pretty straightforward, right?  Now that Marc Crawford has accepted a job with the Stars, who should replace him until he’s fired in December on Hockey Night in Canada?

CBC Prepares for the NHL Awards

Armani and Gucci will replace shoulder pads and skates when the NHL’s brightest stars clean up and head to Las Vegas, on Thursday, June 18, for the 2009 NHL Awards. It will be a full-house as the world’s hockey elite descend upon The Pearl Concert Theatre inside the Palms Hotel for the awards show, airing on CBC Television, at 8:30 p.m. / 9 p.m. NT in High-Definition. The broadcast will also be available live, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET, on CBCSports.ca.

 

Taking centre stage during the show will be performances from award-winning multi-platinum recording artist Robin Thicke, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Chaka Khan and the NHL Awards house band, led by Saturday Night Live band leader Katreese Barnes. The legendary Stanley Cup, the oldest trophy in professional sports, will also make a guest appearance along with members of the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions.

 

The 2009 NHL Awards also sports a cavalcade of celebrities in attendance, including hip-hop superstar Snoop Dogg, crooner Michael Bublé, William Fichtner (Prison Break, Blades of Glory), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galatica, Burn Notice) and Colin Ferguson (Eureka). 

 

CBC’S HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA’s Kelly Hrudey will be on hand to pass out the hardware, along with Pat Burns, Tony Esposito, Sergei Fedorov, Doug Gilmour, Pat LaFontaine, Igor Larionov, Brian Leetch, Reggie Lemelin, Mark Messier, Stan Mikita, Andy Moog, Glenn Anderson, Jarome Iginla, Luc Robitaille and Jeremy Roenick.

 

Rounding out the 2009 NHL Awards’ exciting lineup are the ultimate stars of the night—the NHL players. Hart Memorial Trophy finalists Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Pavel Datsyuk, along with Norris Trophy finalists Nicklas Lidstrom, Zdeno Chara, Mike Green and Vezina Trophy finalists Tim Thomas, Chris Mason and Niklas Backstrom will be among the hockey royalty in attendance. 

 

The eight awards to be presented during the 90-minute broadcast include the Calder Memorial Trophy (Outstanding Rookie), Frank J. Selke Trophy (Outstanding Defensive Forward), Hart Memorial Trophy (Most Valuable Player to His Team), Jack Adams Award (Outstanding Coach), James Norris Memorial Trophy (Outstanding Defenseman), Lady Byng Memorial Trophy (Sportsmanship and Gentlemanly Conduct), Lester B. Pearson Award (Most Outstanding Player as voted by fellow members of the NHLPA) and Vezina Trophy (Outstanding Goaltender). 

 

All voting for the 2009 NHL Awards was conducted at the conclusion of the 2008-09 regular season. The Professional Hockey Writers’ Association votes for five trophies (Hart, Norris, Selke, Calder and Lady Byng), the NHL Broadcasters’ Association selects the Jack Adams Award recipient, NHL General Managers vote on the Vezina Trophy and the NHLPA votes for the Lester B. Pearson Award. 

NBC Gets Hammered By Hoops, Still Draws Respectable Number for Hockey

We only have early ratings numbers so far.  We’ll get you the viewers and demos shortly.   But Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on NBC drew a 3.9/7, good to draw NBC a third-place finish for the night.  The game peaked at 10:00 PM with a 4.5/7, and was at it’s lowest at 8:30PM with a 3.5/6.  Meanwhile, the NBA Final Game 3 drew an 8.7/14 in the overnight.

We’ll have more numbers for you when available.  For now, the half-hour breakdowns are after the jump.

UPDATE: Thanks to the Programming Insider, we now know that the NHL drew 5.45 Million Viewers and a 2.2 among Adults 18-49.  That was #3 in total viewers and #2 for the night in the demo.  The game peaked with a monster (for hockey) 6.96 Million Viewers and a 2.8/8 in the demo at 10PM.  It was at it’s weakest in the 8PM half-hour with 4.53 Million Viewers and a 1.8 in the demo.

Overall, this probably shouldn’t ever happen again, and we hope NBC and the NHL have learned their lesson.  But hockey fans should be proud that they stood up for their sport (or sat down on a couch for it) and drove the NHL to it’s highest ratings of the season.

More half-hour breakdowns are now post-jump.

More People Find VERSUS Than Obscure Networks Like ESPN, Comedy Central and CNN Last Week

While a 15th-place finish might not seem like a big deal to many people, it may likely have been the highest weekly finish in VERSUS history as far as primetime viewers go.  Propped up by two Stanley Cup Final games as well as Faber/Brown II, VERSUS averaged 1.14 million viewers in primetime for the week of June 1-7.  It outdrew networks such as Lifetime, AMC, and oh yeah… a little channel called ESPN (1.076 million). 

So take that, VERSUS-haters, and check out all the numbers at TV By the Numbers.

taking over the internetz.

There internet is a strange place. I spend a good bit of my day reading it (my google reader usually accumulates 200 items a day) and talking to peeps on gchat, many of them are the ones on my blogroll. There’s the twitterings and the Jezebeling. I write in a million places and waste time on Youtube, watching Bret Michaels get smacked in the face over and over again. It’s a magical place that I love.

Some peeps dislike my kind with our internetz. After all, we are killing just about every creative and entertainment means. Sorry, but if you’re going to give something a name as awesome as “piracy” the chances are high people will commit it. Oh and I am killing newspapers. Nevermind you I am being green to the environment. I am slaughtering and maiming the once sacred medium.

But others have decided the internet is pretty rad after all and it can be utilized to capture specific audiences quickly and on the cheap. This are the awesome forward thinkers seizing technology. Some of the of them are a bitttt overboard. Like, does Bob Villa really need a twitter? Probably not, but it exists. Hockey clubs are joining in the modern times giving blogging with mixed results. But it’s the thought that counts, right? Here I made you a macaroni necklace, mom. Since I’ve had my fair share of issues with a specific hockey club hating on my blogging style, it’s reassuring to see others work being embraced.

So in this long and roundabout way; NICE JOB STEVE DANGLE. Steve scored prime real estate on Leafs On Demand site. Go click on Leafspace. It’s all him. And before you think they just tossed up his youtube vids, nay good sir. They made intros! Dangle is one of my favorite people. He’s got a bit of a following on Youtube with his Leafer Fan Reaction which have branched out into awesome skits with action figures and doing a bit of work for the esteemed Puck Daddy and it’s spilled over into his distinguished eyebrows reppin’ the Leafspace. Really, I think it’s wonderful that Steve’s work is being embraced by a team he loves; it’s modern marketing and communication that is built upon a niche.

It’s a sign of good things to come for those of us typing away on our laptops. It signifies the shift of just how digital this all is. The revolution may not even be televised, but check your DVR. The revolution will come from keyboards.

PS; Oh please believe I am taking in Sean Avery on Jimmy Fallon next Monday. I will be taking fashion notes and hoping the whole Cuthbert thing is referenced. Also, I will only be watching Fallon for Aves, ok? I’m strickly a Conan O’Brien/Craig Ferguson kind of gal.

We’ve Been Really Sick Lately. Also Sick? VERSUS Drawing 3.4 Million Viewers For Game 4

NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 8, 2009)-VERSUS, the exclusive cable television home of the National Hockey League (NHL), garnered a 2.8 national HH rating and averaged 3,448,431 viewers for its Game 4 telecast of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final on Thursday, June 4, when the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings at Mellon Arena to even the series 2-2.  The game, which peaked at a 3.4 HH rating between 10:15 and 10:30 p.m., was the highest-rated and most-watched Stanley Cup Final game on cable since 2002.  VERSUS, for the 8:00-10:45 p.m. time period, was the top-rated cable network in the country among all key male demos.  

 

VERSUS’ coverage of Game 4 was highest-rated and most-watched telecast ever in network history, beating the previous high set just two days earlier on Tuesday, June 2, for Game 3 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final (2.6 HH rating and 2,955,348 average viewers).  Compared to the average of VERSUS’ two Stanley Cup Final telecasts last year (1.9 HH rating and 2,479,977 average viewers for Games 1 & 2), the network saw 42-percent growth in HH ratings and a 30-percent increase in viewership for the two telecast average of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final (2.7 HH rating and 3,211,572 for Games 3 & 4).    

 

Locally, VERSUS garnered a 14.7 HH rating in Detroit and a 27.5 HH rating in Pittsburgh, making VERSUS the top-rated network (broadcast and cable) for the time period in both markets.  VERSUS was also a top 5 cable network for the time period in New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC and Philadelphia, among others.        

 

VERSUS concluded its coverage of the 2008/09 NHL season with tremendous gains in ratings and viewership as compared to the 2007/08 season.  The network saw 27-percent growth in viewership for the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs overall after garnering more than 20-percent viewership growth during the regular season.  The 2009 Conference Finals were the highest-rated third round on cable since 1998, with HH ratings up 25 percent and average viewership up 30 percent from 2008, while the Conference Semifinals were the highest-rated second round on cable since 1997.

BUT THIS AIN’T SEAWORLD…

Hey, it’s been a while babes. But let’s look at what the NHL Shop has been up to. They are totally on vacation and phoning this all in. Watching I’m On a Boat, apparently. So get your towels out.

I GOT MY….

squint and you can see the logo

AND MY…

yo where is T Pain?

The NHL store does not sell mermaids at this time. But really, it will happen sooner or later. And then I will complain about how skanky they look and that they are bad for women and the NHL needs to join this time period. But for now I will go on about these fratastic swim trunks and flippy floppies that are best paired with sixers of Corona, bad tans and wraparound sunglasses. I’m actually surprised there aren’t pink ruffle glitter bikinis with a logo as a pastie and then one on the bottoms covering the hot pocket and retailing for 75 dollars.

This post is a gif o rama and I think that’s what really makes it. Here’s moreeeee;

flippy floppies. duh.

I’ll be here tomorrow. With more animated gifs? It’s very likely…

Game 5 Disappoints, Still Wins Ratings Battle on Saturday Night

NBC drew an average of 4.28 million for their broadcast of Red Wings-Penguins Game 5, and a 1.6 among Adults 18-49.  Both figures were good enough to win the night for NBC, the third consecutive time the Final has given the network a victory.

The game peaked with the 9:30-10PM half-hour among total viewers (4.56 Million) and the 9-9:30 PM half-hour among Adults 18-49 (1.8).  The game’s lowpoint was the 8-8:30 PM half-hour once again, with only 3.45 million viewers and a 1.2 in the demo.

This will likely end up being the lowest rated game of the series on broadcast.  Half-hour breakdowns after the jump.

If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Open Thread and TV Guide For Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final as I Walk Away

8:00 PM ET, Pittsburgh vs. Detroit, Game 5 (Series Tied 2-2)

National TV (US): NBC (HD)
Play by Play: Mike Emrick
Color: Eddie Olczyk 
Inside the Glass: Pierre McGuire

National TV (CANADA): CBC (HD)
Play by Play: Jim Hughson
Color: Craig Simpson
Reporters: Scott Oake and Elliotte Friedman