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| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.0/11 | 1.0/4 | 1.0/4 | 0.9/3 | 0.3/1 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 7.51 | 5.27 | 3.21 | 3.57 | 0.95 |
Please note, these numbers are preliminary and that due to the nature of how live events are measured, the numbers for last night’s NHL Stanley Cup Final game are even more subject to change than normal. Also note that these numbers measure the prime-time portion of the game only and do not include viewership past 11pm and even the preliminary numbers have not been time-zone adjusted for the game.
NBC skated to an easy win Friday as the decisive Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 averaged a 3.0 18-49 demo rating from 8-11pm and 7.51 million viewers.
The other new shows on broadcast television included an episode of Don’t Forget the Lyrics which doubled (and tripled) the 18-49 demo rating of Surviving Suburbia and The Goode Family respectively at 8pm and 20/20 at 10pm which, with a 1.6 demo rating, was the most 18-49 demo watched show that didn’t feature the Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
You can see TV ratings from past Friday overnight reports here.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) |
| 8:00 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 (8-11p) | 3.0 | 11 | 7.51 |
| FOX | Don’t Forget the Lyrics | 1.2 | 5 | 3.81 | |
| CBS | Ghost Whisperer (repeat) | 1.1 | 4 | 5.19 | |
| ABC | Surviving Suburbia | 0.6 | 3 | 2.87 | |
| CW | Priviledged (repeat) | 0.3 | 1 | 0.94 | |
| 8:30 | ABC | The Goode Family | 0.5 | 2 | 1.82 |
| 9:00 | CBS | Flashpoint (repeat) | 1.0 | 4 | 5.46 |
| FOX | Mental (repeat) | 0.8 | 3 | 2.60 | |
| ABC | Samantha Who? X2 (repeat) | 0.7 | 3 | 2.38 | |
| CW | Everybody Hates Chris (repeat) | 0.3 | 1 | 0.94 | |
| 9:30 | CW | The Game (repeat) | 0.4 | 1 | 0.99 |
| 10:00 | ABC | 20/20 | 1.6 | 5 | 5.98 |
| CBS | Numb3rs (repeat) | 1.0 | 3 | 5.48 | |
| 8:00 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 | 2.2 | 9 | 5.78 |
| 8:30 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 | 2.5 | 10 | 6.37 |
| 9:00 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 | 2.9 | 11 | 7.27 |
| 9:30 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 | 3.1 | 10 | 7.55 |
| 10:00 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 | 3.7 | 12 | 9.01 |
| 10:30 | NBC | NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Game 7 | 3.7 | 12 | 9.07 |
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Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. Source Marc Berman/Mediaweek.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101.
Those NHL numbers are amazing. I bet that Gary Bettman is doing cartwheels right now. He shouldn’t get his hopes up too high – it’s only because there are two of the most popular American teams. I’d like to see the local numbers to see where the strength was.
As for The Goode Family, I’m not 100% sure, but I think those numbers are or are very close to being records lows for primetime programming on ABC. Dumont over on PiFeedback always tracks that stuff.
“ABC The Goode Family 0.5 2 1.82″
lol
Doug, the NHL pretty much got the best of all worlds for US TV ratings. Two big US teams, one of the league’s up and coming stars, and most importantly, a seven game series. They indeed must be pinching themselves.
It was an epic Stanley Cup Final game seven. And the best series in a long long time. And, Doug is dead on right! The league got its two most popular teams, playing the full seven games. If this series didn’t interest hockey fans, no hockey series will.
Congrats to the Penguins, first of all.
Second of all, lol at The Goode Family. Bye, I’m sure we won’t be seeing you again
Third of all, how did Conan do?
Conan/Dave numbers are available to us by press release or TV trade media only. We are on the lookout.
O
M
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WOW @ The Goode Family!!!! Those numbers are just HIDEOUS, even for a Friday…whoa!
Will ABC pull The Goode Family from its schedule completely or move it to Saturdays @ 10/9c after Dirty Sexy Money finishes on August 8th? Those numbers are laughably pathetic! Even Pushing Daisies got better ratings (0.8/3)–and that was on a Saturday! Besides, next week’s episode sounds inappropriate for the Family Hour on ABC.
two US teams from strong markets, two successful winter classics (OUTDOOR HOCKEY)and an epic game seven, NBC will more than likely extend its revenue sharing deal with the NHL. The next outdoor game possible will be at Fenway Park in BOSTON. great promotional tool for the league and NBC (more so NBC) for the winter games in Vancouver next Feb. The league still has a way go in terms of importance and interest with some in America, but things are looking up. GOOD JOB NHL
!
the goode family was over before it began.
Calling the Penguins and Detroit the most popular teams is a bit off. Detroit certainly is popular, and the Penguins are growing quickly by virtue of Sidney Crosby, but Detroit vs. Toronto or Detroit Vs. Montreal in the finals would have probably been bigger.
Not in the US, Jeff, which is where the ratings reported here measure.
Your lack of reporting universal rating number is puzzling, frustrating, and maybe I just wanna go postal!
It’s fine if you want to report 18-49, but let’s see equally, the entire rating…not just the total viewers. It gives me a historical comparison vs. past ratings.
You have done the baseball equivalent of no longer showing batting averages, but instead, showing only on base percentage in its place.
So, I’ll calm down now, have a spot of tea, then see if anyone can say why American Idol and Madison Avenue often prefer music from an era 60s and 70s that doesn’t fit the “demo.”
Joe B., Our source for weekend overnight numbers (Marc Berman/Mediaweek) doesn’t provide fast affiliate HH ratings either. Not that we’d bother with them if he did, but just to make the point that we are hardly alone in our zeal to deprive you of information.
However, you can find the final HH rating in the NBC weekly final results come Tuesday.
Goode family and Surviving Surburbia did worse than they did on Wednesday nights.
JeffC Canadian teams don’t draw good ratings in the US, Toronto or Montreal would give better ratings in Canada but less in the US.
Nobody cares about hockey and these comments are hilarious. As much as I loved hockey, these games sucked thanks to Bettman’s fixing the Stanely Cup outcome, moving schedules to favor one team and then unsuspending the MVP so he could play. These ratings are a joke. There was no competition on a Friday night and it couldn’t even muster a 3 rating until the last half hour of the game. The shows it was up against were repeats and when you’re patting yourself on the back because your “greatest” game of all can beat out an average night of 20/20 you know your product sucks.
So the NBA, a boring, overhyped sport that is clearly number 3 in the big list gets a 10.2 rating and that is BAD. How funny is it that the NHL gets barely a 3 and you guys and Bettman are all proclaiming victory. Perhaps next year the NHL can proclaim growth when it bests a repeat of Scrubs or the Miley Cyrus movie. LOL.
Decent #’s for NHL, not great, but decent. NHL can thank Detroit’s TV market for these modest #’s. If you look at recent Stanley Cup TV rating success (2002, 2008, 2009), the Detroit Redwings have been involved. All I can say is…Stanley Cup – Detroit Redwings = ratings disaster. Just demonstrates the sport (hockey) has a long way to go to convince casual sports fan to watch.
Great night for the NHL, NBC, and the Pittsburgh Penquins. A Game Seven in any sport draws viewers. Okay, the NHL is not the NBA, NFL, or the NCAA Tournament but it’s popularity is coming back. NBC is doing pretty good this summer.
Again, sports bails out entertainment. Dick Ebersol should run NBC?
NBC should have extended the game indefinitely – the viewer numbers kept growing every half hour
Robert, can I say a .8 for a repeat of Mental on a Summer Friday against Stanley Cup hockey is impressive? That’s getting near the demo for first run Dollhouse eps in spring…
So it took four seasons for the league to turn itself around from complete disaster. Not bad. And if this playoff season wasn’t enough to get some fans to return to the sport, then they’re never coming back. Simple as that.
It was practically the Super Bowl here in Detroit. People I work with were SUPER BUMMED we lost. I’m a bit ashamed of them for how much they care.
I know its a summer Friday… but ABC has GOT to be happy it didn’t renew Surviving Suburbia…
I love the poster who tries to spin 7 million viewers as a disaster. Yeah, being the most watched show in all of television (across all demographics) is a total and complete disaster. I guess the NHL should close their doors and go out of business.
FACT: The NHL had more 18-49 year olds watching the hockey game than were watching CBS, ABC, and FOX… COMBINED.
I would love to see the numbers compared to the NBA. I figured the NHL ratings were alot higher ’cause the jock sniffers at ESPN were actually talking hockey. The NHL’s ratings would be alot higher if the took into account people like me who are close to Canada that prefer to watch the sport on Canadien t.v., much better announcers (Don Cherry)
Oh man, you mean the bitter Red Wings fans are now showing up here, too, to cry that it was fixed by the NHL?
Go Pens! It was an amazing game and series. The playoffs as a whole was really wonderful this year. I agree that if this can’t get people interested in hockey, nothing will. They couldn’t have had a better scenario unless it went into OT (and thank goodness it didn’t!)
NHL Sucks, the fact of the ratings is that this was a huge victory for the NHL and NBC. Just a few years back when I was tracking the ratings, in the finals there will closer to 3 million viewers and a sub-1.0 in adults. So yeah, these numbers are a pretty big deal. Hockey is not a big-3 sport, no, but this is the best performance it’s had in many, many years.
Loved the game 7 final. Close score, well played game. I will never understand why hockey is not as popular as the other sports. I have been a fan since I was a kid. It was nice to see it on primetime. Hockey players are the toughest of all athletes plus today due to the mouth guards most still have their teeth! Congrats to the Penguins and NBC.
Hey guys, someone from Rochester, NY told me that Suburbia and Goode Family didn’t air on his ABC staiton,but instead an hour of Wipeout shit. Any idea why or if that’s so?
The thing that people don’t understand is that people will watch hockey when it calls for them to do so and that proved it last night. The league is on the rise and the important teams here in the US are starting to get popular again locally and nationally. By Sid the Kid getting the cup, he can very well takeover the sport as the next Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods or Wayne Gretzky. It felt like the passing of the torch from one great franchise to the next great franchise of the next decade. The next focus of the league is to make sure that the rest of the franchises have a great following and star players so that the league doesn’t repeat its horrible performances of years past with Lords Stanley Cup Finals.
The best thing that the NHL could do is get the Hawks and Pens in the Stanley Cup Finals at least 3 times next decade. I bet they’d do 12 million viewers at some point.
After the lock-out the league was killed by two finals that featured Edmonton and then Ottawa. It’s no surprise it would take four years to recover. If this year’s final series was Boston and San Jose, the two number one seeds with few well known names, the ratings would have been in the cellar again.
The league has to be praying for a third go-around of Pens/Wings in 2010, as am I – way to go Pens!
“ABC The Goode Family 0.5 2 1.82?
Ouch, HBO shows do better than that.
Hockey is the best sport in the world…by far.it is the fastest,hardest and toughest sport in the world.basketball is not a good sport…it is slow moving ,the last minute takes 7 hours, every play there is a pussy foul, and every player is a whiner and a wuss. they all talk tough but cant fight(the fight with carmello anthony is poof). the only reason why americans dont like hockey… is because they’re not the best at it,have you ever seen USA vs. the soviets in 1980, that was the greatest moment in american sports history,just because you havnt won since then doesnt mean that you have to have the sport. there too shallow to promote a sport that they are not best at. the only hockey places are the ones in northern parts.we should all be like you,congrats on being able to appreciate that greatest sport of all time
diehardhockeyfan is right 100%. if you watch a basketball game after a hockey game,you will fall asleep.1980 “miracle on ice” was the most inspirational moments in american sports history…even kobe bryant said so…if you have never seen it than i recommend you look it up on youtube right now…it will give you goose bumps because america was going through hard times against the soviets at the time . and the soviets were “unbeatable”. well not anymore. also get the movie…very inspiring
Is Bryan (June 13 4:13 p.m.) aware that the local Pittsburgh TV ratings for the Stanley Cup series just passed are nearly double those of the local Detroit market? And perhaps in 2007 as well. Game 7 this year was the highest rated NHL game…that’s GAME…since 1994.
Season tickets can be had for the Red Wings today if you’d like. The season ticket wait list for the Penguins is over 1500 and may have grown in the last 48 hours. People and ‘experts’ have been short sheeting the Pens all season. To borrow Mike Lange…get in the fast lane Grandma…the bingo game is ready to roll. Already ready for 2009-2010
I’m pissed off because the real game, baseball, is not on as scheduled ( Smile, I’m not really as egocentric about the sports I like as about some other stuff.) I have not been able to watch a hockey game all the way through in years. But Detroit is the closest thing to a dynasty US hockey has had since I was growing up, hockey was on every weekend, and I actually knew who Esposito, Bobby Orr etc were. ( The Bruins. I guess Rangers and Devils and Mighty Ducks fans will say I’m an idiot, but taking hockey off like taking the NBA off became an out of sight out of mind for me.) Anyway, congrats to the Penguins, I guess Eddie LeBeque’s team, and Carlas. They were up against lousy competition, but high 3’s is good for any Friday summer night.
The NHL ratings cant be compared to the NBA. The NHL loses everytime, by alot, but The NHL had great ratings for what they have gotten the past few years, and I think if the NHL tried to keep thier playoffs away from the NBA playoffs, then ratings would be even higher. The NHL and NBC must be extremly happy!
***on another note if you dont like the NHL ona major broadcast newtork… too bad, cuz NBC just signed the NHL to a another 2 year deal. GO NHL!
and everyone talks about the Red Wings and Penguins….(im a devils fan),but i cant admitt the devils wont bring in numbers like this, but im gonna go out on a limb here and say if there was ever a Rangers/Blackhawks finals, chicago vs new york, then the ratings could be even higher than they were this year. Just a thought.
*can admitt
I’m curious to know why [some] hockey fans (those that follow NHL) feel the need to bash NBA? Do you think your criticism of the NBA is going to lessen, diminish the sport’s popularity? I hardly doubt it; and I hardly doubt NBA ratings will suffer as a result. If you find NHL more exciting – good for you. Support the product. TV viewership, ratings speaks for itself.
How come Americans don’t watch Canadian teams? I thought Montreal and Toronto are the most succesful teams in NHL history.
Which is why Americans don’t watch, Tom. Who wants to see their own team lose?
What I ment is, how come Rangers fans will watch a Red Wings/Pinguins finals and not a Canadians/Mapel Leaves finals?
I’ve been watching the Cup Playoffs with more attention this year than ever — and my hockey fandom dates from the mid-70s. As luck would have it, for Game 7 I was entertaining a date who had never seen a hockey game in her life.
She was flustered immediately. I watched the game through her eyes at first and realized that if you can’t anticipate where the puck is going, this is a brutal sport to watch on TV. But after awhile she got the hang of it, examining the “body language” of the players in the frame to get a sense of where the puck was. She comprehended the off-sides and icing rules shortly thereafter and by game’s end she said she couldn’t believe that three hours had passed since we sat down to watch the game.
So, in sum, those of us who lament the poor ratings the game usually gets must understand how ridiculously difficult it is to engage a novice in it. I made the effort because of the magnitude of the game. Were it a regular season game, how many of us would have had the patience to do so and more important, how many newcomers to the game would have had the desire to concentrate that hard on a sporting event that holds no intrinsic interest to them?
i love detroit not pagwins:(
Hockey needs big US teams to play each other if they’re ever gonna get going again. Teams like Detroit, Chicago, NY Rangers, Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington all need to be in the playoffs if the NHL wants to gain some traction in the US. The NBA will always be more popular because of the ability for people to play it at a recreational level. Also, what Alloverthemap said was 100% correct. As a hockey player, i often forget how hard it is to watch this sport due to its fast nature. Average people will only start to like the game after watching it a couple of times since it does take some experience to understand and learn how to watch the game. From everyone i talked to, hockey is their favorite playoff game to watch, if they’ve seen it before.
The NHL will probably never match the NBA in ratings. Hockey is generally a middle class white person sport that doesn’t appeal to Latinos or African Americans. Hockey is expensive to play while basketball isn’t. Hockey will never be as popular as the others for that simple reason. It’s expensive to play, You can’t play outside in the majority of the US (Huge reason why Hockey is #1 In Canada and it doesn’t appeal to Latinos or African Americans, which are a huge part of the NBA ratings. It’s hard to get people to watch something they have never played and the NHL is forced to go out and get people to watch the game because for a lot of people they can’t play Hockey because it’s so expensive.
Areid, there are lots of reasons why hockey is the #4 professional sport for TV ratings that make far more sense than those you cited.
Taking your logic, football should be a lot less popular than basketball and baseball, it’s much more expensive to play, and far fewer people play it at any stage of their lives than basketball or baseball, yet it’s far more popular on televsion. Sort of flies in the face of your logic, eh?
I think more to Areid’s point is that the game is predominately played by foreigners.
Allover, vs. other US professional sports, you are correct, but like Areid, I doubt that has anything to do with the TV ratings!
@Bill Gorman
I’m not sure I agree with you entirerly. While many people never get to play football on any kind of an organizied level, if my childhood experience is any kind of indication, almost all kids (at least boys) play football in some fashion. I live in Montana and we played full-contact, no pads, tackle football year round, even if we had to wade thru a foot or two of snow to do it. The cost of a football was no more than that of a basketball.
ljo, well, then I guess football should be equally as popular on television as basketball and baseball (by Areid’s silly logic), right? Yet that’s not the case.
I wasn’t really trying to make any other point than Areid’s logic was silly by pointing out the disconnection. Of course lots of people play football.
Be interesting to see an educated guess at which professional sports enjoy the largest worldwide audience.
Soccer would likely be #1. After that I couldn’t even hazard a guess.
Alloverthemap, this is something I’ve always been interested in as well, and the fact is that it’s hard to define what ‘largest audience’ is. The World Cup Final or Olympic Ceremony is the most watched event in even years, and the Super Bowl in odd ones, at least from most of the data I’ve ever seen.
In 2007, the top was the Super Bowl (97m Average), followed by the last race of the F1 season (78m) and the Champions League final (72m). However, what makes most watched? F1 has around 20 races, though most get less viewership than the finale. Is this more than the combined total for all NFL games? What about all Champions League matches? It’s really hard to get any idea.
Partial 2007 Data:
http://www.televisionpoint.com/news2008/newsfullstory.php?id=1200461993
Apparently, according to some older data, the F1 season is watched by around 500 million unique viewers a season, as the world-wide nature of the sport makes it easier to get to viewers in all time-zones and countries. I suspect this may make it the biggest professional sporting ‘league’ (not counting international competitions), at least in the number of unique people. However, who knows how reliable this data is?
@Bill Gorman
Football is by far (except for NASCAR i believe) the most popular sport in the US because of two reasons. One is betting, and two is because many people when they are young play some sort of football, which leads them to learning and enjoying the game. How many times have you thrown around a football when you were young? Baseball and Basketball are the same way. All you need is one football, or a basketball, or a wiffle ball bat and ball and a group of kids can play these games. Hockey on the other hand, everyone needs a stick. Granted sticks aren’t expensive(if theyre only for street hockey) but everyone needs to buy one or borrow one which inhibits kids from playing it on a recreational level.
This in turn leads to its low popularity among the US people. If they’ve never played the sport, there’s little to no possibility of ever liking the sport, let alone watch a game.
The point about betting is an outstanding one. Major audiences tune into sporting events for precisely that brand of entertainment. Here, again, hockey comes up lacking. With empty-net goals often providing the difference between which side wins and loses a bet, this is a sport that defies a gambler’s analysis. Bye-bye ratings points as a result.