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| Game Five Draws 3.2/5 Overnight On ABC |
ABC earned a 3.2/5 overnight Nielsen rating for last night's coverage of Game Five of the Flames-Lightning Stanley Cup Finals, down 14% from a 3.7/6 for Game Five of Devils-Mighty Ducks last year, also on ABC. ABC averaged a 1.7/3 (1,800,000 HHs) for Games Three and Four of Lightning-Flames, down 29% from a 2.4/4 for Games Three and Four of Devils-Ducks. This year's average for Games Three and Four marks the lowest since the Stanley Cup Finals moved to broadcast TV in '95. Game Four on Monday earned a 2.1/4, down 22% from a 2.7/5 (THE DAILY). USA TODAY's Rudy Martzke notes the 1.4 for last Saturday's Game Three was the "second-lowest rating for any program on a major network in prime time in TV history," topping only a 1.3 for a snowboarding event on NBC in December '02 (USA TODAY, 6/4). In DC, Lisa de Moraes listed the Stanley Cup Finals under her "losers" category for the week, as Game Three "clocked fewer than 2 million viewers Saturday night, by far the smallest Stanley Cup number since it migrated from cable to the broadcast networks" (WASHINGTON POST, 6/3).
LITTLE HELP HERE: In Tampa, Rick Harmon writes of ABC, "If anyone has been watching other ABC programming, it would be hard to know the Stanley Cup Finals were being broadcast by the network. ... Let's hope NBC is watching and realizes a little air time on 'ER' and 'The West Wing' could go a long way toward helping the ratings. Obviously, ABC didn't realize this — or didn't care" (TAMPA TRIBUNE, 6/4).
THE OPPOSITE UP NORTH: In Ottawa, Rob Brodie reports the CBC's coverage of Monday's Game Four garnered 3.45 million viewers, up more than 300,000 from Game Three. Three of the first four games of the series had audiences of more than 3 million viewers. The net's all-time record is 4.96 million viewers for Game Seven of the '94 Canucks-Rangers Stanley Cup Finals (OTTAWA SUN, 6/4).
