Detroit, in addition to being “Rock City” (at least according to KISS) and “The Motor City” also has the designation of being Hockeytown USA. I’m not trying to ruffle anyone’s feathers (or Red Wings) but I’m torn on who the better Hockey town is on a Nielsen ratings basis.
To the plus side for Detroit is that even when the Red Wings vs. Penguins Stanley Cup Finals matchup went head-to-head against the Detroit Pistons/Boston Celtics game (again) on Wednesday, the NHL coverage got an 18.2/28 share in the local Detroit market while the NBA game got a 15.9 rating locally.
Meanwhile, the Penguins home market had a whopping 33.1 rating with a 47 share. What this means is that a third of all homes in Pittsburgh (even including people who weren’t home or didn’t have their TVs on) were watching the quest for the Stanley Cup and almost half of the televisions that were turned on (47%) were watching the NHL. That was only the case with 28% of the TVs in use in Detroit.
All bets are off for Saturday night’s contest when for the first time the Red Wings and Pistons will not be playing at the same time. Both Pittsburgh and Detroit are great hockey cities but if Pittsburgh winds up with the higher local market ratings, it will have a fair claim to the Hockeytown USA title. At least from a Nielsen ratings perspective.
Who do you think will have the better local ratings on Saturday?
Pittsburgh. Detroit has a huge black population and they will not be watching hockey on Saturday night.
We report on US ratings via Nielsen. I have seen the Canadian numbers via news sources though: it represents an additional 2.11m for game one, 1.89m game two.
That is the English network. RDS which is the French Sports Network in Canada had over 800,000 one game and 680,000 for game 3 along with 2.01 million English viewers. Game 4 on Saturday should be high in Canada as it is the traditional night for Hockey Broadcasts. NBC gives the NHL Sat nites for the finals because it has nothing to lose because ratings are always a low nite except for the NFL. MLB is now staying away from Sat nites for the World Series for the same reason. If the NHL can maintain a decent rating after such a great game then they are truly making inroads.
Nothing else to do in Pittsburg!!
Factor in CBC and the ratings are much higher in Detroit's favor. Myself, most of my friends, and all of the sports bars I've been to prefer to watch the game on CBC.
I wouldn't be surprised if factoring in CBC watchers in Detroit would raise the rating over Pittsburgh. Everyone in Detroit gets CBC on basic cable (and some even air).
John, I'm not sure that Nielsen tracks local Detroit market CBC viewing (not sure they donâ??t either), but I'm pretty sure we won't get access to it even if they do, so we'll just be comparing NBC viewing in Detroit with NBC viewing in Pittsburgh.
While I'm sure that CBC viewing isn't nothing, I'm highly skeptical that it's anywhere near as big as the NBC viewing was on Wednesday which was 18% of all households in the Detroit market (which includes all of the suburbs too), and 28% of the homes that had a TV on.
“Hockeytown” isn't a title that can be won or lost. It's an Olympia Entertainment (parent company of Red Wings) trademark. Pittsburgh would have better luck becoming the new “Home Of The Whopper.”
Besides, if your team almost left town a year ago, you're just being silly contesting for any national recognition that your town is the best place for hockey in the USA. Especially when the city that currently holds that trademark has won 4 Stanley Cups in the past 11 years. Yes, I counted 2008, too.
As far as ratings go, as everyone else has already pointed out, CBC is the only way to go for hockey in Detroit. Your Nielsen ratings, I'm sure, only account for Detroiters who get their television via satellite, which doesn't carry CBC like the local cable companies do. I'm not going to belabor the point, but I think you probably realize after some of the responses to your blog that Nielsens are inaccurate in this discussion due to the fact that most of us here near the Canadian border in Detroit have a long, long history and tradition of watching “Hockey Night In Canada.”
Marty, thanks for the info. Had no idea they'd trademarked “Hockeytown” I'll see if there is some way to track down the CBC viewing for the local Detroit market simply because I'm interested in knowing what the difference btwn NBC and CBC is. I know you say “CBC is the only way to go” but if that's true it makes me wonder if the 18 HH rating the other night already included the CBC as 18 is very high by itself. Completely agree that if viewing is going on via both CBC and NBC it's not a fair comparison if only one is included.
Mr. Seidman obviously doesn't realize that Detroit is a bordeer city with Canada. Long-time Detroit hockey fans watch CBC's Hockey Night in Canada coverage of the Cup finals — not NBC. CBS can be picked up over the air from across the river in Canada and is carried on most southeast Michigan cable networks. In addition, with the Pistons and Red Wings playing the same night, many fans went to sports bars with multiple screens that carried both games — I don't believe Nielsen numbers pick up the out-of-home bar viewers.