Saturday's NHL on NBC fiasco

Heard this tidbit on the local radio this afternoon.

NBC's Preakness ratings were down about 5 percent from last year. Baltimore (obviously) was the No. 1 market . Louisville (another duh) was No. 2.

The sports announcer said very matter of factly that Buffalo was the No. 3 market. Somehow, I don't think they were watching for the race.

 

Yes, Hodge.

Sorry, my mistake. And, sorry, I'm not old enough to remember seeing it live. I was 10.

 

They should have just put the game on Hockey Night Canada or whatever it's called there. At least you know the people who carry the game actually care for it.

 

Oh, CBC had it on. But, because of NBC's insistence for an afternoon game, we couldn't actually have Hockey NIGHT in Canada on Saturday. It's only been a Canadian tradition for 70 fucking years or so.

Imagine the NFL being told, "oh, btw, your Monday night game? We'd actually like you to start it at 2 p.m. instead." You can guess the response. The NHL should've given NBC the same response - NBC not showing the game at all couldn't possibly have been worse than what happened on Saturday.

As I said on the playoff thread, the NHL whored itself out in the hope of landing a few thousand more American fans, but it probably alienated tens of thousands more Canadian fans in the process, even without the overtime fiasco. Elliotte, can you tell us CBC's recent ratings for Saturday afternoon games as compared to traditional Saturday night games?

 

Here's a thought for NBC: What the hell else are you going to show on Saturday nights? You know what its schedule consists of right now? Law & Order series' repeats. NBC abandoned Saturday evenings a long time ago, there's no reason why the network should have put hockey on at any time prior to the Preakness.

 

Umm... no.

I don't have the national numbers, but here are the Saturday overnights from my city (top 15 market with an NHL franchise):

Law & Order SVU: 5.6, #1 in its time slot

Law & Order: 7.3, #1 in its time slot

Preakness: 4.9, #1 in its time slot with a number more than 3 times higher than #2. It peaked at a 6.3 for the actual race.

Buffalo vs Ottawa: 1.6, #2 behind the Yankee/Red Sox game, roughly tied with the AT&T Classic. At one point it was only .2 better than the WNBA game. And two competing network affiliates were in paid programming for much of that time.

When NBC switched from hockey to the Preakness prerace coverage its ratings doubled almost instantly, 90 minutes before the race.

Again, I like hockey. I used to have season tickets to an NHL team. But any network executive who suggests putting the NHL in prime time will be fired on the spot, and for good reason.

 

The Seahawks opened the season against Cleveland on a Monday afternoon (Labor Day) in 1984. The Cowboys and Rams opened on MNF that night.

 

Okay, what I meant was, imagine the NFL being told its couldn't televise its Monday night game at the regular time because it was being moved to the afternoon to satisfy the network.

 

Oh, I'm with you on that, JJ. Just saying teams have had to scramble before.

The whole thing blows for hockey fans, but I don't see it being any worse than The Baseball Network was in October 1995 or putting the DS games on an auxiliary Family Network five years ago.

 

Hopefully this incident will be the low-water mark for the NHL, just as the NBA having their championship final series games shown on tape-delay on CBS in the late 70s.

 

Good. Most hockey fans would much prefer it being left alone and not aired at all on a U.S. network rather than put up with the kind of bullshit we're constantly being forced to endure by the likes of NBC or Fox.

 

PCLoadLetter,

Didn't realize that NBC's ratings were that good. Then again, Saturday night is the least watched night for television.