June 1, 2007

Broadcast Sports: Bettman can spin it any way he wants, NHL ratings are horrible

By Judd Zulgad, Star Tribune

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman did his best before the opening game of the Stanley Cup Finals to assure everyone the sky isn't falling when it comes to the league's television situation in the United States. According to reports, Bettman acknowledged things "could be better," but then talked about the new media the NHL is embracing and added Nielsen ratings are "but one measure."

While that might be true, Nielsen numbers remain an important measure, and when it comes to the NHL they continue to be lousy. Heck, dreadful.

The first two games of the Anaheim-Ottawa series in the Finals averaged an embarrassing 0.7 cable rating, down 22 percent from the also embarrassing 0.9 rating for the opening two games of the Finals last season between Carolina and Edmonton. Wednesday's game had a 0.6 cable rating after Monday's Game 1 pulled a 0.7. That means of the 72 million homes that get Versus, only 523,000 were watching Monday.

Locally, it was a good news-bad news situation for the NHL. Game 1 had a 1.5 rating on Versus, placing this market fifth out of the 55 metered in the country, and Game 2 had a 1.6 rating, putting Minneapolis-St. Paul second to Buffalo (4.8). The bad news? Replays of the Twins-White Sox afternoon games on Monday and Wednesday nights on FSN North beat the Stanley Cup both times. On Monday, the Twins replay did a 1.8 rating; on Wednesday, the re-air did twice the rating of the hockey game.

The challenge of getting viewers to watch the NHL now falls to NBC (Ch. 11), which will televise the remainder of the series, which Anaheim leads 2-0. Game 3 will be at 7 p.m. Saturday. So far, NBC's postseason ratings are off 9 percent from a not-very-good 1.1 rating and 3 share last year to an even-worse 1.0/3. It won't help matters that for the third consecutive season, a small-market team from Canada is in the Finals.

NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer, whose network has a low-risk revenue-sharing deal with the NHL, is the latest network executive to look at hockey's lack of success on television in the U.S. and scratch his head. The playoff numbers are the most bewildering for Schanzer.

"It's very frustrating," he said recently. "I don't mean to insult anything else -- and I've said this to a number of people over the course of the last couple weeks, without contradiction by anybody -- I don't think there is anything in sports that sustains a level of excitement as much as playoff hockey.

"For sheer end-to-end intensity, there is nothing [like it]. ... And yet we can't move the needle appreciably in terms of increasing audience. It defies your sense of expectation when you can't do it. I've raised this with I can't tell you how many people, and nobody disagrees with me."

NBC has done plenty to try to spark interest in its telecasts -- having Pierre McGuire between the benches is the best move -- and will unveil another twist during Monday night's coverage of Game 4 when CBC's Don Cherry joins its telecast during the second intermission.

Cherry is about as outspoken as it gets and is either loved or hated by most fans in Canada. Of course, Cherry can be as controversial as he wants. If nobody is watching, it won't matter.

No more delays

WCCO (830 AM) is among the CBS-owned radio stations that no longer will use a seven-second delay during its play-by-play coverage of sporting events. WCCO, under orders from its parent company, began employing the delay on all of its programming last September because of the threat of large fines from the Federal Communications Commission for indecent or profane language.

The switch is being welcomed by the Wild, as well as Gophers football and men's basketball. It had become next to impossible to listen to a game on WCCO while watching it at the event or on television because of the delay. The Wild had partially worked around this by broadcasting its games in real time on an FM signal (95.7) in Xcel Energy Center.

While that will continue, in part because an FM signal comes in better in the arena, Bill Robertson, Wild vice president of communications and broadcasting, called the decision "very good news for the Wild and hockey fans."

Greg Gerlach, the general manager of Learfield-run Gopher Sports Properties, also is pleased by the decision. "It's fantastic," said Gerlach, who said he received numerous calls and e-mails from unhappy fans. "Especially for football. A lot of people listen [at the game] and now they'll be able to enjoy the game in real time."

With the delay removed from play-by-play -- it will remain intact for talk shows, as well as pre- and postgame programming -- fans will find WCCO's game broadcasts to be only about two seconds behind the action.

Fine-tuning

• The Twins' victory over the White Sox on Tuesday registered a season-high 9.7 rating (162,804 households) on FSN North. It marked the fifth time this season the Twins won prime time, surpassing the total number of ratings victories the team had in prime time last year.

• Look for ex-Vikings running backs coach Dean Dalton to end up as the analyst for the team's three preseason telecasts on KSTP (Ch. 5).

• Dave Revsine, who had been with ESPN, has been named the lead studio host for the Big Ten Network.

• Dave Cohen and former big-leaguer Robin Ventura will call the Gophers' NCAA regional baseball game against Cal State Fullerton at 6 tonight on ESPNU.