NBC Gets Hammered By Hoops, Still Draws Respectable Number for Hockey
June 10, 2009 10 Comments
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.
The Stanley Cup Finals, Game 6 (NBC)
10:00 p.m.: 4.5/ 7 (#3)
10:30 p.m.: 4.3/ 7 (#3)
The Stanley Cups Finals, Game 6 (NBC)
8:00 p.m. – Viewers: 4.53 million (#3), A18-49: 1.8/ 6 (#2)
8:30 p.m. – Viewers: 4.86 million (#3), A18-49: 2.0/ 6 (#2t)
9:00 p.m. – Viewers: 5.76 million (#3), A18-49: 2.3/ 7 (#2)
9:30 p.m. – Viewers: 5.26 million (#3), A18-49: 2.2/ 6 (#2)
10:00 p.m. – Viewers: 6.96 million (#3), A18-49: 2.8/ 8 (#2)
10:30 p.m. – Viewers: 5.33 million (#3), A18-49: 2.2/ 6 (#2)
About stevelepore
I know this sounds crazy but I think being on against the NBA helped, especially with that 6.96 million figure that came during the 3rd period as the NBA game was in halftime.
Its also worth noting the game ended at like 1040 I think, so the 1030 numbers include like 20 minutes of postgame coverage.
Good points on where it helped to go up against the NBA. But I really think this was a bad idea by NBC and the NHL. If you want to play on the same day play on the weekends and it could work but this just didn’t work for me. They lost a ton of viewers because of basketball, I don’t think there is any qiestion they would have won the night had the NBA not been playing, just because all of the sports fans would have watched. This was Game 6 in a series that is going 7 so they got lucky not to have the Cup Final end up against a close basketball game.
I agree it was a dumb idea and shouldn’t be done again. Mostly because the hype from most sports outlets is 95% basketball. A Game 6 by itself on Monday or today would have gotten a lot more pre-game publicity.
You have to wonder though if those people that came over during halftime to watch the game got hooked enough to come back for a Game 7 on Friday night.
Obviously the NBA hurt somewhat but these are great numbers. 7 million at the 10 pm hour is great…the game ended kinda early so the overall rating was hurt by the 10:30-11:00 time slot. So far the NHL has been #1 for three nites and now #2…it will be #1 of Friday as well
I am thinking the Game 5 blowout dampened a little bit of enthusiasm for the start of the game even though it was not against the NBA until 9. By that time, the game was probably drawing in more people as it was such a good close game.
Ratings are always better later..that is why the NBA starts every game at 9:00…There are just more people available to watch nationally between 9:30 and 11:30. Ratings are always lower from 8-9 on every show. As long as the NBA game is done by 11:45 they maximize their ratings though most people on the East cost hate it
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Thing is, will NBC allow them premium weeknights in the future? Tuesday/Friday/Saturday are the weakest ones and NBC specifically wanted those. I’d think Thursdays are out of bounds as even though NBC is no longer #1 there, it’s still the ultimate battlefield for the networks…
Not sure about Monday/Wednesday… but I do hope the scheduling is a bit better. Probably will be, just because you won’t have the Conan-premiere factor.
The thing that bothers me is that, for the baseball indifferent such as myself, these are the last two weeks of decent sports coverage … and we have to choose between the NBA Finals and the SCF? It’s just a mind blowing series of decisions by two leagues that should be doing everything they can to succeed. Even with all the bad choices by NBC/NHL, you’d think they’d do everything they could to manipulate ratings. Oh well.
NHL got bent over backwards by NBC.