For the second straight week, neither game of an ABC NBA doubleheader managed to crack a 2.0 rating.
Last Sunday’s Rockets/Clippers NBA regular season game drew a 1.8 final rating and 2.7 million viewers on ABC, down 14% in ratings and 17% in viewership from Rockets/Heat last year (2.1, 3.3M) and flat and up 5%, respectively, from Knicks/Clippers in 2013 (1.8, 2.6M).
The Clippers’ win is tied as the lowest rated late afternoon NBA game on ABC since Magic/Suns in March 2011 (1.4), and ranks as the second-least watched over that span. Only the previously mentioned Knicks/Clippers game earned a smaller audience.
Earlier in the day, Bulls/Thunder drew a 1.6 and 2.3 million — tied as the second-lowest rated game on ABC in any window since Suns/Spurs in April 2011 (1.3). Viewership was the second-lowest for any game since April 2011, ahead of only Bulls/Spurs the previous week.
The Bulls and Clippers have been a particularly poor draw for ABC as of late. The network’s ten lowest rated games since the 2010-11 season have involved one or both of the teams.
Sunday’s doubleheader was the second straight on ABC in which neither game managed to reach a 2.0 rating. Only twice in the previous decade had both games of an ABC doubleheader failed to reach the 2.0 mark — Magic/Cavaliers (1.4) and Blazers/Lakers (1.7) in April 2010, and Spurs/Cavaliers and Suns/Mavericks in April 2009 (1.9 for both games).
(Wknd. numbers via Sports Business Daily)
