Opposite tough competition, ratings and viewership dropped for the National Spelling Bee. In other news, TNT’s The Dunk King ended on a high note, and the debut of Turner Sports’ E-League paled to TBS’ usual Friday night fare.
Spelling Bee Down From Last Year
- The finals of the National Spelling Bee earned a 0.5 final rating and 859,000 viewers on ESPN Thursday night, down a tick in ratings and 10% in viewership from last year (0.6, 954K). Keep in mind coverage aired opposite Game 5 of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals (6.1, 10.0M) and Game 7 of the NHL Eastern Conference final (1.5, 2.5M), while last year’s telecast faced no such competition. (via Programming Insider)
Dunk King Finale Tops Two Million Mark
- The finale of TNT’s competition series The Dunk King earned 2.1 million viewers on Tuesday night, the largest audience of the series. The third episode last Sunday had nearly 1.8 million. The complete series averaged 1.8 million viewers across four airings, increasing 36% over TNT’s average viewership in each telecast window. (Turner Sports)
E-League Debut Earns 255K
- The E-League, a Turner Sports-owned video gaming competition, delivered 255,000 in its first telecast on TBS Friday night. Citing a Turner release, this site previously reported that the telecast had 509,000 — but that was just for the first hour of the three-hour window. By TBS standards, it was not much of a draw. In the same 10-11 PM ET window the previous Friday night, the network had 2.1 million for two reruns of The Big Bang Theory. (Sports Business Daily)
