It was a good week for the NHL on NBC and NBCSN.
Last Sunday’s Bruins/Red Wings NHL regular season game earned a 1.0 final rating and 1.6 million viewers on NBC, flat in ratings and up 3% in viewership from Penguins/Blackhawks in an earlier timeslot last year (1.63M to 1.57M). There was no game in 2014 due to the Winter Olympics.
The Red Wings’ high-scoring win scored the second-largest audience of the season on any network, trailing only the Canadiens/Bruins Winter Classic (2.8M). The Bruins have played in the three most-watched games this season, though that is primarily due to their league-high three appearances on the NBC broadcast network.
In other action, NBCSN scored a 0.5 and 769,000 for Blackhawks/Rangers Wednesday night, flat in ratings and up 1% in viewership from Red Wings/Blackhawks last year (0.5, 761K) and the most-watched game on cable since Opening Night. The previous high was set just three days earlier by Flyers/Rangers Sunday night, which drew 738,000.
The previous night, Stars/Blues delivered a much smaller 238,000 — but that was still up 79% from last year’s Sabres/Devils game (133K). Thursday’s Red Wings/Penguins matchup was the lone dud of the week, as its 165,000 viewers declined 17% from last year’s 198,000 for Blue Jackets/Penguins.
(Numbers from NBC Sports, Programming Insider, ShowBuzz Daily [1], [2])
