Mini-pod: NBA and NHL postseason viewership
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Jon Lewis, the founder and editor of Sports Media Watch. In this podcast we discuss viewership for the NBA playoffs and NHL playoffs; why the Knicks might not be as great a viewership draw as you might think; whether people will tune in specifically to see Anthony Edwards; the Bruins as a viewership draw; what the NHL would like to see for the finals; the F-1 Miami rating; the last NBA media rights package up for grabs between NBC or WBD and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify and more.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the sports media podcast. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm your host, Richard Ditch. My producer is Patrick Antonetti. |
| 0:12.9 | This is a mini podcast. |
| 0:15.2 | When we have a mini podcast, we often focus on viewership. |
| 0:18.3 | And when we focus on viewership, we bring in our buddy, John Lewis from Sports Media Watch. |
| 0:22.0 | John, good afternoon. |
| 0:23.6 | Good afternoon to you. |
| 0:25.1 | Thank you. |
| 0:25.8 | All right. |
| 0:26.0 | Let's start with the NBA. |
| 0:28.1 | This is right from your side. |
| 0:29.4 | The first round of the playoffs average 3.14 million viewers across ABC, SPN, TNT, True TV, and NBA TV. |
| 0:36.9 | Down 9% of viewership from last year, but up 5% from 2020, based on your site this year's |
| 0:47.8 | first round trails, only last year in 2018, as the most watched in the past decade. |
| 0:54.0 | Obviously, the big caveats are out of home viewership, not included in Nielsen's estimates until 2020. |
| 1:00.0 | So big picture, what do you make of this first round in terms of viewership for the NBA? |
| 1:04.0 | I think the NBA held up about as well as you possibly could in a transition year. |
| 1:09.3 | One win combined between LeBron, Steph, and Kevin Durant. |
| 1:13.9 | Nine games combined between those three. Obviously, Steph did not play any. |
| 1:19.7 | So, you know, I mean, that's pretty good, all things considered. And beyond the fact that you |
| 1:26.1 | don't have the traditional stars of the past decade, |
| 1:28.7 | really didn't have a lot of good series. Nick Sixers was really good, but, you know, didn't go the full seven. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audacy, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Audacy and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

