NBA Ratings continue to slide

[bamalam]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

NBA has too many games on TV. The thrill is gone when you can watch 4 or 5 games a week. The season is long and then the first round is a best of seven, too long for most casual fans.

plus they should start a series and play at least every other day and back-to-back on the weekends. the whole length of the playoffs is rediculous

[jmood88]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

plus they should start a series and play at least every other day and back-to-back on the weekends. the whole length of the playoffs is rediculous

They already do that except for the weekend thing. There has been a playoff game every day for the past two weeks.

[BoA]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colum...-weekend_N.htm

"The exhilarating basketball in the NBA playoffs has been fun to watch.

But lots of viewers wouldn't know. Through Tuesday, the league's national TV carriers — ABC, ESPN and TNT — are averaging 1.8% of U.S. TV households. That's down 10% from this point in the postseason last year and down 38% from this point in 2000, when more games were carried on broadcast TV instead of cable.

But after ABC this year posted the fifth consecutive record-low ratings for NBA broadcast network regular-season coverage — ESPN and TNT finished even with last year — you have to wonder just how low the league's ratings could go in these playoffs. Or they could rebound: ESPN's total playoff rating last year ended up 38% from its first playoff coverage in 2003."

- What that article doesn't mention is that on March 25th, the NHL on NBC (Pens/Bruins) got a better rating than the NBA on ABC (Suns/Kings). To be fair, a NCAA game was on CBS at the same time.

- NBA on ESPN averaged a 1.2 rating this season. TNT got a 1.0 rating.

- The TV contract with ESPN and TNT expires after the 07-08 season.

I'm not sure how many would agree with me, but I enjoyed the NBA on NBC coverage more than NBA on ABC.

A 1.2?

man those are nhl like numbers.

[yucatan]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

The NBA viewing demographic has a disproportionately high representation of African-Americans. The Neilson box sets have a disproportionately low representation of African-Americans. Add those together and you get miscalculated ratings disasters.

[DrJones]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

I'm not sure how many would agree with me, but I enjoyed the NBA on NBC coverage more than NBA on ABC.

Actually, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree with you. I'm only a casual NBA fan, but NBC's awesome pre-game promos to John Tesh's theme sucked me in every time. HNIC, MNF, and the NBA on NBC are the holy trinity of sports themes.

[EWRMETS]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

Agree with everyone saying how awful ABC and ESPN is for basketball. TNT has unbelievable basketball coverage and games always feel less important when on ESPN or ABC.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

This is the actual Neilson situation in both the US and Canada. A disproportionate of boxes are purposely set up in the homes of people with above average household income because that's what the advertisers want, to reach the people who have the highest disposable income and younger viewers and those below middle class income have little or no representation because they have less disposable income. So inner city viewers have virtually no say in what they watch.

Therefore sports and shows like the NBA and Arrested Development will always show a fraction of what the actual viewership is because those are young viewer shows. That's also the reason why you get 3 different variations of the same "smart" show (CSI) and Desperate Housewives get boffo ratings because those are upper middle class shows when in actuality the viewership is probably half of what the rating shows but again advertizers want those people to buy thier goods so they really don't care how skewed the results are.

Case in point. The hip shows like Seinfeld and Cheers were ratings disasters the 1st season because older viewers did not identify with him like younger viewers did but strong word of mouth and media publicity saved both from cancellation and it still took several years for both to reach the top 10. Arrested developement was too quirky and never caught on with the middle aged viewers.

[DocHolliday]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

I like watching the NBA. I just heard that they set a record for live attendance this year? you would think this would translate

[MassNole]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

This is depressing as I am just finding a renewed interest in the NBA.

[jmood88]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

This is depressing as I am just finding a renewed interest in the NBA.

It's not that big of a deal though, the nba isn't going to get cancelled like good shows usually do.

[luv_mist]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

This is the actual Neilson situation in both the US and Canada. A disproportionate of boxes are purposely set up in the homes of people with above average household income because that's what the advertisers want, to reach the people who have the highest disposable income and younger viewers and those below middle class income have little or no representation because they have less disposable income. So inner city viewers have virtually no say in what they watch.

Therefore sports and shows like the NBA and Arrested Development will always show a fraction of what the actual viewership is because those are young viewer shows. That's also the reason why you get 3 different variations of the same "smart" show (CSI) and Desperate Housewives get boffo ratings because those are upper middle class shows when in actuality the viewership is probably half of what the rating shows but again advertizers want those people to buy thier goods so they really don't care how skewed the results are.

Case in point. The hip shows like Seinfeld and Cheers were ratings disasters the 1st season because older viewers did not identify with him like younger viewers did but strong word of mouth and media publicity saved both from cancellation and it still took several years for both to reach the top 10. Arrested developement was too quirky and never caught on with the middle aged viewers.

Wasn't this also the case with Family Guy and Futurama? A lot of people still watch those shows which resurrected them from being cancelled. I HATE the NBA on ABC/ESPN setup because it's so impersonal. It's kind of the same thing I see with the NFL. All those games on the new monday night football program are GARBAGE!! They try too hard to sell the atmosphere without letting the game speak for itself. Also, the refs with their garbage calls can turn people off. If the games were memorable every night with stellar plays and refs who weren't trying to dictate who goes where and who gets how many minutes, then the games would be so much better.

[MassNole]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

Wasn't this also the case with Family Guy and Futurama? A lot of people still watch those shows which resurrected them from being cancelled. I HATE the NBA on ABC/ESPN setup because it's so impersonal. It's kind of the same thing I see with the NFL. All those games on the new monday night football program are GARBAGE!! They try too hard to sell the atmosphere without letting the game speak for itself. Also, the refs with their garbage calls can turn people off. If the games were memorable every night with stellar plays and refs who weren't trying to dictate who goes where and who gets how many minutes, then the games would be so much better.

I must say, that BS call on Barbosa yesterday killed a great game for me. Damn those foreign players bringing the soccer flopping into the NBA.

[Cebby]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

In my opinion, ABC/ESPN shouldn't have the rights to any major sporting events other than college football.

[xythander]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

I must say, that BS call on Barbosa yesterday killed a great game for me. Damn those foreign players bringing the soccer flopping into the NBA.

If the Refs didn't call ticky tack fouls then the flopping would probably go down. I say bring the game back to the way it was when Magic and Bird played.

[muggins]

Re: NBA Ratings continue to slide

Not surprising, the NBA has a lot of problems:

1) Regular season is too long
2) Playoffs are too long
3) Too many games in a series in the playoffs
4) It is hard to care about team that are 40-42 and make the playoffs

They need to fix it, then there will be more viewership. Houston and Utah? Forgettable series.

Also, the GS / Mavs game was on way too late for EST viewers to even care.