ABC's First NBA Playoff Game Rating Almost Identical To NBC
ABC's coverage of Game One of Lakers-T'Wolves on Sunday posted a 5.1/13 overnight Nielsen rating, down 2% from a 5.2/11 last year for T'Wolves-Mavs in the comparable time slot on NBC. Last year's opening playoff weekend was not Easter Weekend. TNT earned a 1.7 final cable rating for Trail Blazers-Mavericks and 2.0 final for Jazz-Kings on Saturday. On Sunday, TNT earned a 2.6 final rating for Hornets-76ers. For the three games, TNT averaged a 2.1, up 31% from last year's 1.6 national rating for the first weekend, which featured two games (THE DAILY). USA TODAY's Rudy Martzke writes ABC's 5.1 "topped the 4.8 average for six games on NBC last year by 6%." But with most NBA playoff games on cable this season, the overnight, "combined with the ratings from seven weekend cable games, likely will not approach the 28.6 ratings points for six games on NBC last year plus two cable telecasts." Mediacom's Jon Mandel said of the coverage format: "Championship playoffs should be extra special. They are so focused on building ESPN that the NBA gets lost in the shuffle. If they cared equally about the NBA, they would have more games on ABC and more promotion, but it's obvious they care more about themselves than their supposed partners." But ESPN Exec VP/Programming & Production Mark Shapiro said, "When this deal was done, all we heard was that (NBA Commissioner) David Stern diluted this product with overexposure. Now there's not enough attention being given the NBA. I don't buy it" (USA TODAY, 4/22).
REVIEW: In Milwaukee, Bob Wolfley wrote ESPN's Brent Musberger and Sean Elliott "are much better than what they showed Saturday" during Bucks-Nets Game One. Wolfley: "Because the Bucks and their best player were so bad, they felt compelled to excuse it, to explain it away, to soften it, to sell the next game and the series. Maybe that's a byproduct of trying to sell the competitiveness of a series at the top" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/20).
PLAYOFF NOTES: The Pacers said that their decision "not to have a local telecast of" Celtics-Pacers Game Two yesterday "was strictly business," as Pacers Sports & Entertainment "bears the production costs and sells the advertising for local broadcasts." Pacers President Donnie Walsh "couldn't justify the potential loss," saying: "When it was all said and done, we didn't know if we could make any money off of the TV. It didn't make any sense to lose money and then take a hit at the gate, too." The game was also blacked out on NBA TV in the Indianapolis market because the game was not sold out" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 4/22)....AOL, in conjunction with Turner Sports, yesterday launched a new daily, three-to-five minute playoff feature for broadband customers called "Win or Go Home Report." The new program, which runs through the '03 NBA Finals, features original on-location reports, game previews/reviews and interviews with players and coaches (AOL).
NEW ERA: In L.A., Larry Stewart reported simulcasts of Lakers games, a "tradition through Chick Hearn's 42 seasons, will be history beginning next season," as Lakers TV/radio announcer Paul Sunderland "has been offered a two-year contract to do television only." Analyst Stu Lantz received a new two-year deal and was "given his choice of TV or radio [and] chose to stick with Sunderland on TV." Candidates for the radio play-by-play position are Larry Burnett, Joel Meyers and Bill Macdonald, while the analyst position "is up in the air. Possibilities include Reggie Theus and ... Don MacLean, but apparently no candidates had been contacted by Thursday" (L.A. TIMES, 4/18).
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