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Audience Analysis: Bulls-Cavs Leads Sports On Saturday Night, But ABC Third In Primetime

Saturday night saw a heavy slate of sports on broadcast TV. The debut of ABC’s “NBA Saturday Primetime” featured Bulls-Cavaliers and finished with 3.92 million viewers. That figure marked the NBA’s best non-Christmas Day game audience this season to date on any net. “NBA Countdown” from 8:00-8:32pm ET also drew 2.44 million viewers, giving ABC a primetime average of 3.66 million viewers. That put ABC third among broadcast nets for the night. CBS led Saturday night with a combination of “Crimetime Saturday” and two episodes of “48 Hours,” averaging 5.14 million viewers. NBC ranked second with coverage of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Coverage of the event from 8:00-11:00pm drew 3.7 million viewers. Despite finishing third in viewership, Bulls-Cavs did deliver ABC a primetime win in all key adult male demos. Meanwhile, Fox had its debut telecast of Premier Boxing Champions on Saturday night, drawing 2.52 million viewers from 8:00-10:37pm. By comparison, Fox averaged 2.82 million viewers for its four UFC Saturday night telecasts in’15, and 2.74 million for four telecasts in ’14. The first PBC telecast -- a primetime bout on NBC this past March -- drew 3.37 million viewers.

COURTS IN SESSION: Fox drew 905,000 viewers on Sunday afternoon for Providence-Villanova, marking the net's second-best college basketball audience on record, behind only 2.2 million viewers last January for Duke-St. John's, which marked coach Mike Krzyzewski's 1,000th career win. This comes despite the game moving from Saturday to Sunday due to the Winter Storm Jonas. The audience for Providence-Villanova also passes the previous record on Fox for a Big East conference game since the league began play in the net in '14. The previous record for Fox was 721,000 viewers for Villanova-Marquette last season....MSG Net on Tuesday night drew a 4.17 local rating in N.Y. for Thunder-Knicks, marking the RSN’s best NBA game rating since Celtics-Knicks on Jan. 7, 2013. Season to date, Knicks games on MSG Net are averaging a 2.17 local rating, up 31% compared to the same period last season.

Listed below are final viewership figures for select recent sports telecasts.

TELECAST
DATE
NET
TIME (ET)
RAT.
VIEWERS
(000)
AFC Championship: Broncos-Patriots
1/24
CBS
3:06-6:40pm
29.3
53,300
NFC Championship: Panthers-Cardinals
1/24
Fox
6:47-9:58pm
24.1
45,739
"The NFL Today"
1/24
CBS
2:00-3:06pm
8.7
14,352
"NFL Championship Chase"
1/24
CBS
1:00-2:00pm
3.0
4,552
NBA: Bulls-Cavaliers
1/23
ABC
8:32-11:02pm
2.4
3,916
U.S. Figure Skating Championships
1/23
NBC
8:00-11:00pm
2.3
3,747
NBA: Warriors-Cavaliers
1/18
TNT
8:00-10:34pm
2.3
3,622
Premier Boxing Champions
1/23
Fox
8:00-10:37pm
1.5
2,518
"NBA Countdown"
1/23
ABC
8:00-8:32pm
1.6
2,437
"Fox NFL Sunday"
1/24
Fox
6:00-6:38pm
1.4
2,389
U.S. Figure Skating Championships
1/23
NBC
3:00-6:00pm
1.4
2,200
"Sunday NFL Countdown"
1/24
ESPN
1:00-3:00pm
n/a
2,152
College basketball: Duke-N.C. State
1/23
CBS
2:08-4:07pm
1.4
2,090
NBA: Warriors-Bulls
1/20
ESPN
8:06-10:26pm
n/a
2,073
NBA: Clippers-Cavaliers
1/21
TNT
8:00-10:40pm
n/a
2,034
NBA: Pacers-Warriors
1/22
ESPN
10:35pm-1:04am
n/a
2,007
College basketball: Maryland-Michigan State
1/23
ESPN
6:35-8:41pm
n/a
1,883
College basketball: Syracuse-Duke
1/18
ESPN
7:00-9:04pm
n/a
1,708
Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series (taped)
1/24
CBS
12:00-1:00pm
1.1
1,674
College basketball: Oklahoma-Iowa State
1/18
ESPN
9:04-11:01pm
n/a
1,629
NBA: Rockets-Clippers
1/18
TNT
10:34pm-1:35am
n/a
1,580
College basketball: Vanderbilt-Kentucky
1/23
ESPN
4:06-5:50pm
n/a
1,445
U.S. Figure Skating Championships (re-air)
1/24
NBC
12:30-3:00pm
1.0
1,400
College basketball: UCLA-Oregon
1/23
CBS
4:07-6:07pm
0.9
1,309
U.S. Figure Skating Championships
1/24
NBC
4:00-6:30pm
0.9
1,300
College basketball: Georgetown-UConn
1/23
CBS
12:00-2:08pm
0.8
1,263
EPL: West Ham-Manchester City
1/23
NBC
12:30-2:30pm
0.7
1,200
Liga MX:
Chivas de Guadalajara-Tigres UANL
1/24
UniMas
5:50-8:00pm
0.5
1,066
College basketball: Providence-Villanova
1/24
Fox
1:00-3:15pm
0.6
905
"30 for 30": "Bad Boys"
1/23
ABC
3:00-5:00pm
0.6
895
"EPL Goal Zone"
1/23
NBC
2:30-3:00pm
0.5
806
USSA Grand Prix:
Freestyle Skiing Halfpipe (taped)
1/24
NBC
3:00-4:00pm
0.5
697
"World of X Games: Aspen Preview"
1/23
ABC
2:00-3:00pm
0.5
688
"Fox College Hoops Tip-Off"
1/24
Fox
12:30-1:00pm
0.4
662
"UFC Road to the Octagon"
1/23
Fox
2:00-3:00pm
0.4
611

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