The Dodgers' Tuesday night home game against the D-backs marked the first Dodgers telecast on SportsNet LA that was carried on Charter's cable systems, and ratings and viewership "more than doubled compared with this season’s average," according to Meg James of the L.A. TIMES. The game drew a 1.31 local rating and an estimated 103,871 viewers. The season average prior to Tuesday's game had been a 0.63 rating and 45,535 viewers a game. The jump in TV viewership on Tuesday was particularly noteworthy because D-backs-Dodgers "ran opposite a highly rated" Warriors-Cavaliers NBA Finals Game 3. Charter, after "holding out for more than 14 months," recently agreed to "begin offering SportsNet LA in its channel lineup." The company's shift "represented the first break in the logjam that has prevented hundreds of thousands of homes in the region from having regular access to Dodger games" (L.A. TIMES 6/11).
CAP'N CRUNCH: On Long Island, Neil Best reports despite the Yankees currently occupying first place in the AL East, many TV viewers still "seem to be taking their time warming to the first team of the post-Derek Jeter era." YES Network through Tuesday was averaging 2.51% of N.Y.-area homes for its Yankees telecasts, down 20% from last season at this time and 2% from '13 -- a season that "ended with YES' lowest ratings in a decade." The Mets were averaging 2.27% of area homes on SNY, up about 19% from last season but "still trailing the Yankees, as they have throughout this millennium" (NEWSDAY, 6/12).
