NBC's coverage of Wednesday night's Bulls-Jazz NBA
Finals Game Five was the most-watched game in league
history, with NBC estimating an audience of 60 million
viewers. The national Nielsen rating for the game was a
20.1 rating/35 share, the third-highest rated game in NBA
history, behind Game Seven of the '88 Lakers-Pistons Finals,
with a 21.2/37, and Game Six of the '93 Bulls-Suns Finals, a
20.3/39. Through five games, the series has a cumulative
average of a 16.4/29, trailing only the 17.5 average for the
first five games of the '93 Finals (NBC). In Chicago, Game
Five earned a 51.4/72 locally, in Salt Lake it earned a
56.3/78 (Nielsen Sports Marketing).
SIMPLY RED: In Milwaukee, Bob Wolfley writes on NBC
analyst Bill Walton's work during the NBA Finals: "Walton's
persona as an analyst is no longer charming or refreshing.
He's shrill. He's too quick to criticize ... and he
criticizes too frequently, so much, you stop listening"
(JOURNAL SENTINEL, 6/13). In N.Y., Richard Sandomir
institutes the Redhead Watch, an analysis of Walton's word
use, noting that he used "terrible," his "favorite overused
word, only three times" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/13).
