NHL on NBC Down Slightly From Game 2, Still Does Okay vs. Hoops Sunday Night
June 7, 2010 8 Comments
From Marc Berman of Mediaweek:
Game five of The Stanley Cup Finals, which averaged an estimated 4.0/ 7 in the overnights from 8-11 p.m. Here is the half-hour breakdown:
Stanley Cup Finals, Game 5 (NBC)
8:00 p.m.: 3.4/ 6 (#3)
8:30 p.m.: 4.2/ 7 (#2)
9:00 p.m.: 3.7/ 6 (#2)
9:30 p.m.: 4.7/ 7 (#2)
10:00 p.m.: 3.6/ 6 (#3)
10:30 p.m.: 4.3/ 7 (#2)
For sheer posterity, the NBA Finals numbers:
NBA Finals, Game 2
8:00 p.m.: 7.9/14 (#1)
8:30 p.m.: 9.7/16 (#1)
9:00 p.m.: 11.1/18 (#1)
9:30 p.m.: 10.4/16 (#1)
10:00 p.m.: 12.3/19 (#1)
10:30 p.m.: 13.9/22 (#1)
Puck The Media 
Not bad numbers for what was a blowout going head-to-head to a really, really good basketball game. I actually thought the numbers would be way down.
I think this means they’ll go to the Sunday, Wednesday, Friday schedule next year. It’s probably smart to dump Saturday altogether.
Not if CBC has anything to say about it . . . of course, I’m not sure that anyone at the NHL ever listens.
I think the saturday night thing is out the window for the finals.
I think the NHL has made their policy of ignoring the CBC quite clear.
CBC is still getting 3 million viewers per game for this SCF, with no Canadian teams involved. Do you think that they’re not happy about that?
The NHL is basically why they’re even in business.
Ask your average Canadian hockey fan how often he watches CBC. After he answers, ask him to take away HNIC. It’s probably a small number of hours, if at all. The NHL keeps CBC relevant on Canadian television. The people in Canada are going to watch Stanley Cup games any night of the week, so why not do NBC a favor and stear clear of the worst night on American television? And anyway, the itch for Saturday night games is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the 90’s, there often weren’t any Saturday night games. I seem to remember that the Bruins and Oilers didn’t play any games on Saturday in 1990.
I wonder what would happen if you removed Western states and Florida (deep south states) from the ratings completely then see how well the NBA did against the NHL. I guess the best thing would be to look at cities compared to each other: NBC and ABC on Sunday.