The third weekend of the Stanley Cup playoffs was flat on NBC.
Game 2 of the Wild/Blackhawks second round Stanley Cup playoff series earned a 1.4 final rating and 2.2 million viewers on NBC last Sunday, flat in ratings and down in viewership from Bruins/Rangers last year (1.4, 2.4M). The game ranks as the third-most viewed of the playoffs on any network (through Thursday), trailing only Red Wings/Bruins Game 2 (2.8M) and Blackhawks/Blues Game 6 (2.8M), both in the first round.
The previous day, Game 2 of the Canadiens/Bruins series scored a 1.1 and 1.8 million — flat in ratings and up in viewership from Red Wings/Blackhawks last year (1.1, 1.7M), and the lowest rated and least-viewed game of the playoffs on NBC (eight telecasts).
NBCSN had a much stronger performance over the weekend. Rangers/Penguins Game 2 had 1.9 million viewers on Sunday night, the fifth-largest audience ever for a second-round game on the network. Two nights earlier, Wild/Blackhawks Game 1 earned 2.0 million, the network’s third-largest second round audience. Including Canadiens/Bruins Game 1 (1.9M), three of the five most-viewed second round games on NBCSN have taken place this year.
The network’s only dud was Kings/Ducks Game 1 last Saturday night, which earned a mere 797,000 viewers. Each of the first three Kings/Ducks games has failed to earn one million viewers.
(Last weekend’s numbers from Sports Business Daily, The Futon Critic [1], [2], [3])
