Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators will now live in television infamy.
The game, which the Senators won (before promptly dropping Game 4 last night) drew a 1.1 rating, down 31% from last year and tied for the lowest rated prime-time program ever on NBC. The other program with that dubious distinction is a 2005 rerun of The West Wing, which also drew a 1.1 rating.
Game 4 last night drew a 1.9 rating with a 3 share, down 5% from the 2.0 rating for Game 4 last year.
With the Ducks up 3-1 and headed back to Anaheim for Game 5 tomorrow night, NBC could be looking at significant year-to-year declines for this year’s Stanley Cup Finals. The last three Finals have each gone seven games.
While hockey has been drawing terrible ratings, NBC cannot blame this on the Stanley Cup Finals: the network averaged only 4.8 million viewers in prime-time last week, “the smallest since at least 1991, the earliest Nielsen Media Research records could immediately be traced. It’s likely you’d have to go back to the days of black-and-white sets to find a smaller number.”
