NBC on Saturday earned a 6.3 overnight rating for the race segment of the Preakness Stakes telecast. That figure is the best for the Preakness since '10 and up 5% from a 6.0 last year. Baltimore led all markets with a 17.2 local rating, up from a 15.7 last year. Louisville's 16.6 was the next best local rating, up from a 15.0 in '13. Rounding out the top five markets were Ft. Myers-Naples (11.3), Cincinnati (11.2) and Buffalo (10.5) (THE DAILY).
BETTER THAN THE BEST: In Baltimore, David Zurawik wrote if one of the "hallmarks of true greatness is consistency, NBC Sports is a truly great operation, because again, it came, it covered, it turned in another top-notch Preakness telecast." Covering a horse race for a mainstream audience "is not nearly as easy as NBC Sports makes it look." Among the hardest parts is "holding the attention of enough general viewers to earn respectable ratings, while talking to the hardcore horse-race aficionados who are your base audience for such events." But NBC Sports "walks the tightrope of giving plenty of airtime to the horse racing folks without blowing off general viewers by putting Bob Costas at the top of the on-air pyramid and Drew Esocoff in the director's chair." Almost no one in the TV industry "knows how to package sports as mainstream entertainment as well as these two by the nature of their work" on "SNF." NBC Sports Coordinating Producer Rob Hyland and Esocoff "deserve special recognition for the incredible co-ordination and timing that they brought to Pimlico Saturday" (Baltimore SUN, 5/18). In Tampa, Tom Jones writes, "As expected, NBC's coverage of Saturday's Preakness was top notch. Nobody does horse racing better." The "highlight of the coverage was Josh Elliott's feature on California Chrome jockey Victor Espinoza and his brother, Jose" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 5/19).
