Game 1 Local Ratings For US Teams

ANA (FS Prime Ticket): N/A
BOS (NESN): 9.4
CAR (FS Carolinas): N/A
CHI (CSN Chicago): 4.4
CLB (FS Ohio): 5.7 
DET (FS Detroit): 9.7
NJ (MSG Plus): 0.7
NYR (MSG): 2.4
PHI (CSN Philly): 4.5
PIT (FS Pittsburgh): 14.7
SJ (CSN Bay Area): 4.2
STL (FS Midwest): 7.6
WSH (CSN Mid-Atlantic):  3.3

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Your TV Guide and Open Thread For Day Five of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

 

This will appear every night to inform you of the TV networks and announcers that will be covering the games during the playoffs.  Enjoy all the local and national info, after the jump.

Hockeytown Gets Behind Champs’ Defense Early

We have yet another great ratings story.  This one from Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press:

re the Wings going to generate playoff interest a little earlier than last year?

FSD reports the opener against Columbus was Thursday night’s highest-rated program in the metro area, drawing a 9.7 Nielsen rating (about 186,900 households). That’s about a 19% increase over last season’s opener against Nashville.

The game beat network programming like Fox’s “Bones” and NBC’s “Southland” (7.0 each) and peaked in the third period with a 12.4 rating.

Yeesh, is anyone’s playoff ratings down this season?  Well, the only markets we haven’t heard the ratings from are New York (Rangers and Devils) and Los Angeles (Ducks), so maybe that’s your answer.  We shall see.

CEO Testimony: Comcast Would’ve Offered to Make OLN an “All-Football Channel”

You know, certain things we try to keep our noses out of.  The Comcast-NFL Network squabble is one of them.  That’s because the word “squabble” is an understatement.  In case, like us, you don’t care, Comcast went into such a hissy fit after the NFL deterred an offered believed to be well over $400 million a year to put NFL games on VERSUS, then OLN, to air the games on the NFL Network, that Comcast – which owns VERSUS among other things – has held a grudge to the point that it simply won’t put the channel on it’s basic cable tiers, making it only available on a pricey sports-pack tier.

However, some interesting things were said in a Federal Communications hearing by Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, according to Multichannel News:

Phillips got Roberts to agree that if Versus — then OLN — had obtained the rights to a package of eight primetime games it would have probably tried to raise the price of its channel, as the NFL did of its network when it decided to keep the games there.

But Roberts also said that was a hypothetical, since there was never any consideration of simply adding those games. The Comcast boss said the bid for the games was part of a larger strategy to create a multisport network–NHL, Major League Baseball and football–to compete with ESPN.

Phillips pointed out that Comcast had at one point given NFL owners an option of making OLN into an all-football channel. Roberts said that had indeed been the case, but it would have involved other football as well, rather than simply the eight games.

That last paragraph, we imagine, might be some pretty interesting news to Gary Bettman, who took $70 million a year from what apparently could’ve just willy-nilly become an all-football network.  Now, all of this is moot at this point, but would the NHL still be on OLN/VERSUS if this had happened?  Would the NHL have looked to void the deal with OLN, seeing their plans to go all-football, all the time?  Or would OLN have gotten the NFL package and made a serious run at ESPN, promoting hockey big-time during it’s NFL coverage?

Sadly, we’ll probably never know.  But it makes for interesting Sunday reading.