After a slow start to the season, the Premier League has picked up steam on the NBC broadcast network.
Last Saturday’s Manchester City/Tottenham English Premier League match had a 0.8 final rating and 1.2 million viewers on NBC, up a tick in ratings and 15% in viewership from Aston Villa/Leicester City last year (0.7, 1.0M). Viewership also increased 46% from Newcastle/Southampton two years ago (795K).
It was the second-most watched EPL telecast all season, trailing Liverpool/Manchester City on New Year’s Eve (1.2M) and just a scratch ahead of Manchester United/Hull City in week three (1.160M to 1.159M).
Seven straight EPL windows on NBC have earned at least 900,000 viewers, a marked turnaround after seven of its first eight failed to hit that mark.
In other action last weekend, Chelsea/Hull City led all matches on NBCSN with a 0.3 rating and 516,000 viewers last Sunday morning, though that was down 11% in ratings and 5% in viewership compared to Stoke City/Arsenal last year. The preceding Arsenal/Burnley match was also off in ratings (0.25, -40%) and viewership (406K, -38%).
Stoke City/Manchester United ranked second on cable with a 0.3 and 487,000 the previous morning, up a tick in ratings and 69% in viewership from Manchester City/Crystal Palace last year (0.2, 288K). Those gains were offset by a whopping 88% decline for the concurrent Crystal Palace/Everton match on CNBC, which had just 56,000 viewers compared to 451,000 for Chelsea/Everton on USA Network last year.
Rounding out the weekend, Liverpool/Swansea started the week 22 action with a 0.2 and 255,000 on NBCSN, flat and down 3% respectively from Tottenham/Sunderland a year ago (0.2, 262K). Southampton/Leicester City opened Sunday morning with 121,000; there was no comparable window last year.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 1.24, Awful Announcing 1.28)
