Rangers Move to Games to Local TV, We Need Hockey Historians Help

This comes from Ken McMillan of the Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record:

MSG Network has moved two Rangers games and two Knicks games to FREE TV, which is probably good news to the few of you who don’t have cable television or subscribe to the cable sports packages. WPIX (Channel 11) will carry the four contests.
Rangers: Feb. 28 vs. Colorado; March 21 vs. Buffalo

Fair enough.  Good news for anyone in the New York market that still doesn’t have MSG.  But McMillan asks a more interesting question in his column:

For the life of me, I cannot think of the last time, if ever, the Knicks or Rangers appeared on WPIX. From 1966-89, both teams made their free TV home on WOR (Channel 9), and four games appeared on My9 last season. WNBC (Channel 4) has been assigned a couple late-season games in recent years. Naturally, WNBC, WNYW (Channel 5) and WABC (Channel 7) have carried national or regional telecasts are part of the NBA and NHL packages.

Any of our more elder statesmen reading the blog: Have the Rangers ever aired games on Channel 11?

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If You Want To Hear Our Voice That Badly

We appear on “The Rink” with James Gralian and Tom Luongo for what must be a record third time.  It was a fun chat.  Listen here.

VERSUS Scores 1.1 Million Viewers For All-Star Game

VERSUS’ telecast of the All-Star Game was up 28% in viewers, 20% in households.  The Superskills went up 45% in viewers.  Overall, nearly 1.1 Million people watched the game across America.  We’re going to try and get some more detailed market-by-market ratings for you later in the day.  Here’s the VERSUS release:

 

NEW YORK, N.Y. (January 28, 2009)-VERSUS, the network that celebrates real competition and the exclusive cable television home of the National Hockey League (NHL), earned a .9 national household rating which translates in to 697,576 households and 1,086,998 total viewers for its telecast of the 2009 NHL All-Star Game on Sunday, January 25. All figures are according to Nielsen Media Research and VERSUS Research and are live+same day numbers.

Compared to the 2008 NHL All-Star Game, this year’s telecast saw a 13-percent increase in household ratings, while household impressions grew 20 percent and total viewership increased 28 percent. The network also saw increases across all key male demographics: Men 18-34 (up 53%), Men 18-49 (up 43%) and Men 25-54 (up 56%). Additionally, the All-Star Game telecast propelled VERSUS to the #2 rated cable network in the country among Men 18-34 and Men 18-49 and made VERSUS the #1 rated cable network overall in several cities including Boston, Buffalo, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

 

French-Language Viewers Raise All-Star Viewing Levels

This comes from William Houston of The Globe & Mail:

 

Canadians tune in when the NHL all-star game is in a Canadian city.

With Montreal as the host, Sunday’s all-star game drew its largest television audience since 2000, when the game was played in Toronto.

The CBC telecast was watched by 1.516 million viewers, just less than the 1.557 million who tuned in for the 2000 game.

The CBC drew its largest audience ever for Saturday skills competitions, 1.358 million, bettering 1.327 million in 2000.

The French-language Réseau des Sports, with distribution limited mainly to Quebec, drew huge audiences.

It pulled in 1.146 million for the Saturday skills competitions, up 139 per cent from last year.

The game telecast on Sunday was watched by 1.007 million, an increase of 144 per cent from 2008

 

Counting in VERSUS and CBC viewers, approximate 3.23 Million viewers across North America watched the All-Star Game.  Without VERSUS numbers, it appears 2.507 million watched the Superskills Show across Canada.  Good numbers for the NHL once again.

Hockey Only Beating Hoops on TV in Three Markets

We’re not going to make an enthusiasm gap joke here.  Basketball’s always doing better than hockey on TV, and that’s not what that subject was debated on.  The point here as that it takes a basketball team really blowing chunks to find a hockey team that can beat it in the ratings.

What follows after the jump is a slightly more detailed look at the NBA vs. NHL battle in markets where both teams compete.  We’ll feature the teams in the market’s current average attendance as well.  Enjoy.

Washington Out-Rates Many Big Markets in All-Star Ratings

In the midst of a report on Capitals TV ratings vs. Wizards TV ratings in the DC market (More on that later today), we get this chestnut from Dan Steinberg of his amazing DC Sports Bog:

Brief interlude: The overnight ratings for Sunday’s NHL All-Star game on Versus came down strong for D.C. Our market ranked seventh in the U.S. with a 1.53 rating, ahead of “hockey-town” towns like Denver, Detroit and Chicago. The overall Versus rating was around 0.7, peaking at 0.95 for the shootout.

And we thought all the Caps fans were too busy complaining about how everyone got snubbed except for the great Alex.  Good news for the NHL that DC is strong as a hockey market, and not just a Caps market.  Though were certain that #8 had something to do with the big numbers.  Also, I’d like to know what the top six markets were if Washington was #7, ahead of Denver, Detroit and Chicago.  Buffalo?  Pittsburgh?  Who else?