ABC Gets Mixed Results With Overnights For Weekend NBA Games

Opinions Mixed On Whether James Can Drive NBA Ratings

ABC earned a 3.4 overnight Nielsen rating for its coverage of yesterday’s Pistons-Bulls Eastern Conference semifinals Game Four, down 12.8% from a 3.9 for the comparable Heat-Nets Game Four last year. ABC aired Pistons-Bulls despite the Pistons’ 3-0 lead heading into Game Four, while Game Four of Jazz-Warriors, with the Jazz holding a 2-1 lead, was on TNT at 9:00pm last night. ABC earned a 4.1 overnight for Saturday’s Suns-Spurs Western Conference semifinals Game Three, up 2.5% from a 4.0 for the comparable Spurs-Mavericks Game Three last year (THE DAILY).

STAR WATCH: In N.Y., Selena Roberts wrote Cavaliers F LeBron James “hardly moves the ratings needle with his on-court role.” The “highly commercialized James does not square with the increasingly tepid pop-culture appeal of James. Fans don’t pay to see him the way they used to” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/12). But the AP’s Tom Withers writes James is the only NBA player who can “make the most casual hoops fan delay mowing the backyard to spend a glorious spring afternoon glued to the TV.” However, NBA Commissioner David Stern said, “Get to know Carlos Boozer. And how do you like Baron Davis?” Stern: “We’ve got a lot of unheralded superstars that are playing in this league” (AP, 5/14). ESPN’s Michael Wilbon said the Pistons have “nobody with an omnipresent shoe commercial where he’s playing like seven roles, they don’t have anybody on the first or second All-NBA team, and they’ve got nobody on the People Magazine Fifty Most Beautiful List. And in the NBA ... stardom is the thing that has the most cache” (ABC, 5/13).

INT’L APPEAL: An NBA exec said that even with games airing before sunrise, the NBA’s broadcast partner in Spain averages about 150,000 viewers per game. Nearly 100,000 viewers are watching games in England (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 5/12).

WRONG TAPE: During postgame coverage of Jazz-Warriors Game Four last night, TNT accidentally broadcast highlights of Game Two. Among the studio crew of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley, Barkley was the first to notice the error.
Barkley: “Why are we showing the old highlights?”
Johnson: “Because these are the highlights of the game, Charles.”
Barkley: “No, they’re not. This game is at Utah.”
Johnson: “As a matter of fact, these are the wrong highlights.”
Smith: “I thought we had a joke going on at first.”
Johnson: “So, what do you think about tonight’s game, guys?”
Barkley: “Well, I would know if I could see the highlights.”
Johnson to his production crew: “Guys, we don’t really need to see those any more.”
Barkley, laughing: “That is the highlight of my career at TNT. ... That was great. Somebody’s getting cursed out after this show is over” (“Inside the NBA,” TNT, 5/13).