BREAKING: NBC’s Opening Week NHL Ratings, Or “Let’s Not Go Up Against Playoff Football Next Time”
January 19, 2010 3 Comments
Sports Business Daily (reg. required) reports that NBC’s telecast of Blackhawks-Red Wings this Sunday drew an 0.8 overnight rating. These are the lowest ratings for an NBC hockey telecast since Minnesota-Detroit drew an 0.9 last season. It’s down quite a bit from the opening telecast of last season, Rangers-Penguins (1/18/09), which drew a 1.1 rating.
NBC is now averaging a 1.7 overnight for it’s 2 NHL telecasts, if you factor in the Winter Classic.
Puck The Media 
def football played a factor in the low rating but much credit needs to be given to NBC for being a terrible network and a terrible sports network. Too bad for the comcast nbc sale, or I’d be in favor of the nhl dumping NBC and going with espn or some other cable or broadcast channel
and sticking with VS
.8 is lower than .9 🙂 Thus, it’s the lowest since an earlier point in time.
And yes, going up against the NFL Playoffs is tough. Combination of an Olympic year schedule with a late football playoff schedule is bad for ratings.