A slightly less gruesome replay of last week’s 44-point Game 2 beatdown was a middling draw for TNT.
Thursday’s Cavaliers-Celtics NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 5 earned a 3.5 final rating and 5.8 million viewers on TNT, up a tick in ratings and 6% in viewership from Cavaliers-Raptors on ESPN last year (5.5M). Cleveland won this year’s game by 33 points and last year’s by 38. There was no Game 5 of the 2015 East Finals.
Compared to last year’s conference final on TNT, ratings fell 44% from a 6.1 and viewership 42% from 10.0 million for Thunder-Warriors.
The Cavaliers’ series-clinching victory was the second-least watched conference final Game 5 in the past decade, ahead of only last year, and the fourth-least watched clincher over the same span. Two of those four came this year, with Warriors-Spurs Game 4 third-lowest at 5.79 million.
Game 5 scored a 2.2 rating in adults 18-49 and a 2.0 in adults 18-49, matching last year’s East Finals Game 5 in both demos. Compared to last year’s West Finals on TNT, ratings dropped 45% and 47% in the respective demos compared to last year’s 4.0 and 3.8.
(Thu. numbers via Programming Insider 5.26)
