RATINGS VICTORY A SLAM DUNK FOR ABC ON XMAS DAY

Spending Christmas Day watching five basketball games may sound a bit excessive to some, but apparently millions of viewers did just that on Tuesday as two NBA games on ABC and three on sibling cable channel ESPN drew big ratings during the day and well into primetime. The second half of an NBA doubleheader on […]

OSCAR TELECAST TO FACE NBA ALL-STAR GAME

The Academy Awards telecast may find it exceedingly difficult this year to retain its position as the second-most-watched telecast of the year after the Super Bowl. Orlando Sentinel columnist Hal Boedeker points out that the awards telecast will not get the free ride that it normally gets each year, since it will face TNT’s coverage […]

BASKETBALL RETURNS ON XMAS — NO AUDIENCE LOSS EVIDENT

It would appear that the NBA lockout that delayed the start of the current season until Christmas Day had little or no effect on viewership — that is, judging from ratings for Sunday’s quadrupleheader carried by ABC, ESPN and TNT. In fact, the Boston Celtics-New York Knicks game on TNT averaged 5.9 million viewers, making […]

A GOOD YEAR FOR HOOPS AFTER ALL?

Some analysts are speculating that the deal to end the NBA lockout, if approved by owners and players, will likely see a surge of interest in the sport and rub off on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in the spring. AdWeek reported today (Monday) that CBS and Turner Sports, which jointly carry the March Madness […]

OWNERS, PLAYERS AGREE TO END LOCKOUT

At 3:00 a.m. today (Saturday) Ken Berger of CBSSports.com got the scoop — “BREAKING: Tentative agreement reached, according to one of the negotiators,” he reported on Twitter. In subsequent posts, he reported that after a 15-hour negotiating session, the NBA players and owners had reached a tentative agreement to end the 149-day-long lockout and to […]

FIRST TWO WEEKS OF SEASON A NET LOSS FOR NBA

The NBA on Monday canceled the first two weeks of the 2011-12 basketball season due to begin on Nov. 1, amid signs that additional weeks, if not the season itself, will likely be canceled unless some magical formula can be found to break the current stalemate between the team owners and the players. For the […]

BART AND KOBE HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON

The actors who provide the voices of The Simpsons and the athletes who compete in the NBA are clashing with the powers who write their paychecks — and it now appears that they’re losing and that both the next season of The Simpsons and at least the first weeks of the basketball season will be […]

NBA A POWERHOUSE OVERSEAS, TOO

This year the NBA will earn $430 million from overseas sales of which $250 million will come from media distribution deals, the London Financial Times reported today (Friday). (Most of the rest comes from the licensing of merchandise, primarily apparel.) The newspaper noted that 315 members of the international media are currently covering the NBA […]

BASKETBALL A SLAM-DUNK RATINGS WINNER

The first week of the summer season arrived last week, but thanks to the NBA Finals and a couple of talent contests, it wasn’t all reruns dominating the Nielsen top ten list. Thursday’s Game 2 between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat attracted 15.5 million viewers and topped the list. Games 3 and 1 […]

RATINGS FOR NBA FINALS GAME 3 DOWN FROM 2010

Game 3 of The NBA Finals, featuring the Miami Heat against the Dallas Mavericks, averaged an estimated 13.58 million viewers Sunday night, according to overnight Nielsens. (Preliminary ratings for live sports events can sometimes be substantially revised once final figures are reported.) Sunday’s result compares with the 15.72 million viewers who watched Game 3 of […]

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