Last night’s game five matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings where Pittsburgh won a very exciting matchup in triple overtime garnered the best ratings for a game since a 2002 contest betwen Carolina and Detroit and was up a whopping 79% from last year’s Stanley Cup game five. Even if Tiger Woods wasn’t among the viewers, that’s still a nice improvement.
Overall (not just the primetime portion) the matchup earned a 4.3/8 (household rating/share) from 8pm-12:45am EDT. The 2002 matchup featuring Carolina and Detroit netted a 4.5/8.
I still never saw local info for Saturday, but for last night the verdict is in — fittingly, both Detroit and Pittsburgh were “Hockeytown USA”, although even though the Red Wings have the trademark on “Hockeytown”, Pittsburgh won the Nielsen ratings wars. More than 1 out of 3 homes had the game on and of the television sets in use in Pittsburgh more than one out of two was watching the game (52%)! That was the case with almost one out of two TVs in Detroit (46%):
MONDAY’S TOP 10 MARKETS:
1. Pittsburgh, 35.4/52
2. Detroit, 29.6/46
3. Buffalo, 10.2/17
4. Denver, 7.2/12
5. Minneapolis, 7.1/13
6. St. Louis, 6.2/10
T7. Philadelphia, 4.9/9
T7. Nashville, 4.9/8
9. Washington, D.C., 4.7/9
10. Las Vegas, 4.4/7
source: NBC
Out of curiosity…I wonder if LV is up there because of the people placing bets on the game.
seriously, nashville?
Looks like Philly is dejected from losing so nobody is watching! NYC too!
Las Vegas has a lot of hockey fans and it isn't because of betting (hockey betting isn't a big thing for the sports books). Most of the fans here are probably fans of the game, not just fans of a team (partially because we don't have an NHL team). Las Vegas has had a minor league team for years and have been putting 6,000+ fans in the seats at Wrangler games (ECHL).
Detroit's numbers are skewed down due to the CBC. Hard to choose the shit NBC coverage when you can watch hockey on the Canadian station.
I thought a 20 share for Pittsburgh/Detroit as the series drew on, but this vlew that right out of the water. Definitely a feel good story for nthe NHL, and for NBC.
Nashville is a surprise, considering the NHL there is floundering.
If this goes to game 7, could we see 8 million nationwide? I'd like to think so, but much of the ratings are coming from Pitt/Det, and I honestly don't think the ratings are going to go any higher than this.
same as in buffalo. Buffalo didn't even make the playoffs, and still got higher ratings throughout the playoffs than most other cities still in the playoffs.
also…why is everyone so quick to make pittsburgh the new hockey town? Their ratings for the STANLEY CUP finals don't even come close to what Buffalo's were for the CONFERENCE finals last year. Buffalo averaged a 42.5/67. Those ratings don't even count the poeple tuned into the canadian station here. Also…Pittsburgh wants to feel all warm and fuzzy about 1,000 people going to watch the game outside their arena??? Try 14,000 outside Buffalo's arena. Again, that wasn't even for the stanley cup finals, that was for the conference finals. If it had been the stanley cup finals, there would have been 25,000 people outside the arena, and the ratings would have been more like 55/82.
Timmy Hutch: honestly to the degree I have been participating in making Pittsburgh the new hockey town I was merely being facetious.
note to Red Wings fans: for tonight's game I'm going to see if I can get the local Detroit CBC viewing ratings info from Nielsen so I can present a consolidated view of total local Detroit viewing of the game.