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ESPN's NBA Draft Viewership Down 20%; Yahoo Praised For Streaming Show Debut

ESPN averaged 2.99 million viewers for its NBA Draft coverage on Thursday night, marking the event's lowest TV audience since '12. The viewership this year was down 20% from last year's record 3.74 million viewers, and down from 3.45 million viewers in '14. Meanwhile, Yahoo's inaugural NBA Draft show on The Vertical, while not near the TV audience level of ESPN, totaled 3.7 million video views and reached more than 2.8 million unique viewers across all devices. It also averaged 34 minutes of watch time per user (THE DAILY).

GOOD START: AWFUL ANNOUNCING's Andrew Bucholtz wrote the numbers are "impressive," and it is "substantial that a web show got this many views." The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski said, "I was just pleased with the reporting, pleased with not only breaking a tremendous amount of stories over the course of the evening and the last week leading into the draft, but with the accuracy of what we're doing. And the quality of the analysis; what (Indiana men's basketball coach) Tom Crean did in the studio was impressive. If Tom Crean decided to do this full-time, he'd be as good as anyone there is." Wojnarowski said that he "wants this to be the first of many NBA streaming shows for Yahoo around big events like the draft and free agency" (AWFULANNOUNCING.com, 6/24).

TRY THIS: SI.com's Richard Deitsch wrote The Vertical "offered a blueprint on how to pick off some audience from a broadcast rights-holder for events such as a draft or free agency coverage, or quite frankly anything that's not a live sporting event." All companies "spin digital metrics," and there is "no chance The Vertical's broadcast came close in viewers to ESPN." But the "presence of The Vertical was part of the reason" ESPN viewership was down 20%. Every major sports outlet "should attempt to do what The Vertical did in some form, even if that's filming MMQB staffers in SI's offices talking about the draft" during the NFL Draft. Deitsch: "The costs are cheap, the upside is big." The Vertical Exec Producer Alan Springer said that Wojnarowski told him and the production staff "many of the trades and picks before he reported them publicly, so the producers were able to build video and breakdown segments to support the content." Springer: "All we needed was the official tweet of confirmation and it was all on the air in mere seconds." Springer said that The Vertical "plans to do live events around NBA free agency, the trade deadline and the NBA draft" (SI.com, 6/26).

GAME CHANGER: In DC, Jake Russell wrote Yahoo "delivered a game-changer to NBA draft viewers." The show was "ahead of ESPN's telecast with each draft selection and breaking news, including trades." The "depth of the coverage, plus that it was announcing selections before the televised broadcast, made it an instant hit with viewers, while fans grew increasingly dissatisfied with ESPN's slow and, at times, inaccurate coverage" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 6/25). In Indianapolis, Zach Osterman noted Crean "received generally positive reviews for his performance, which centered largely on analyzing skill sets and potential for drafted players" (INDYSTAR.com, 6/24).

BIG CROWD: One third of the U.S. watched at least five uninterrupted minutes of the NBA Finals, according to data provided to THE DAILY by Samba TV. The company, which includes Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban as an investor, collects real-time data on viewership for traditional and streaming TV. Samba Dir of Research Ryan King said that through partnerships with hardware firms like Samsung and Vizio, the company’s software is factory-installed on cable boxes, smart TVs and mobile devices in nearly 10 million households and is integrated with 36 million devices in total. King said TNT may have been the big winner during the NBA Playoffs on the whole, as the net’s seven-game Warriors-Thunder Western Conference Finals telecasts were watched by an average of 40% more viewers than ESPN’s Cavaliers-Raptors six-game Eastern Conference Finals.

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