rest assured that the general public in germany also doesn´t care about events with no medal chance or even no participation by german athletes. Not much different in many other european countries from what i can tell. Or sports that aren´t popular the rest of the year.

The main channels ARD/ZDF (the "state-channels") showed basically only events with german medal candidates or at least well known german participants live unless it was a traditional event (like the mens downhill), other events were either shown delayed or in short highlight videos.
Eurosport on the other hand showed more other stuff live. LIke they do year round. And you know what ? There ratings are sad at times ...

It´s an interest thing more than anything imo. Just like an NBA or NFL fans will rather watch their home team than just about any other game and the casual "neutral" fan will obviously rather tune in to watch 2 big name teams than , say, the Thunder playing the Hawks.

You don´t allways need to dig that deep to explain people ;)

read in the Youtube comments section that it's "I'm shipping up to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys.

FM

Just so we're clear: hockey is Coke's game? I need to know for my next game on friday.

Whoever said that is a incorrect. I have no idea who it is but unless it is some bastardized beyond recognition version that is not DKM

that's why I said I read it on youtube. I could not tell you what Dropkick Murphys play even if my life depended on it...

FM

Frogman truly has gold medal mania: He's citing Youtube comments as a source

Kindof what I expected but good to have that confirmed. Basically, while we were watching Bode Miller or Lindsey Vonn in primetime (even recorded), the Germans were watching the entirety of two-man bobsled, the Koreans were watching short track, the Norwegians cross country skiing, and the Canadians curling. You have to play towards your audience.

SI

Just to give another example of this, on the Sports Interactive boards (mostly Brits) there were quite a few complaints about the excessive curling coverage on the main channel for Olympic coverage, that being one of the few events where a Brit might medal.

Might be of some interest to a few folks here, a detailed breakdown of various stats from the 57+ hours of primetime coverage by NBC

Winter Olympics - Events & Commercial Pods, and What Nielsen Didn't Measure - The Sternberg Report

Among the highlights

There were 15 hours, 15 minutes of commercials (national and local) and promos, or 27% of the entire Winter Olympics broadcast. This is the same percentage as primetime in general. However, about 70% of the typical primetime series is programming. But during the Winter Olympics, only 58% was devoted to actual event coverage. The remaining 15% was allocated to profiles, interviews recaps, medal ceremonies, and talking heads.

...

The WInter Olympics has shorter commercial pods than the typical primetime program. That's because the typical primetime series commercial break has either all national commercials or national commercials, followed by promos, and then local commercials. The Olympics mostly breaks the national and local commercials into separate pods.

There were 233 national commercial pods, averaging 2:40 per pod.

There were 94 pods containing only local commercials. All of them started with a network promo. These averaged only 2:01.

There were 37 commercial pods that contained both national and local commercials. These averaged 2:45 and all had a network promo separating the national and local commercials.

By comparison, the average commercial pod in a broadcast primetime series is about 3:10.

This is one reason why research will tend to show greater recall of ads - shorter commercial breaks often have less channel switching.

...

Yep. Bettman isn't fit to run a Starbucks, nevermind the NHL.

When does the Versus contract end? Versus has a shitty product when it comes to covering the NHL. Just comes off as cheap.

http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.ph...e_nbc_numbers/
More NBC Numbers

by Paul on 03/01/10 at 03:11 PM ET
Comments (0)

Vancouver - March 1, 2010 - Sunday afternoon’s USA vs. Canada gold medal hockey game, that NBC’s Bob Costas called, “One of the greatest sports events I have ever seen,” was the most-watched hockey game in 30 years. Canada’s epic 3-2 overtime victory (3:20-6:13 p.m. ET) drew an average viewership of 27.6 million, the most watched hockey broadcast of any kind since the USA vs. Finland 1980 gold medal game in Lake Placid on Feb. 24, 1980 (32.8 million). For historical comparison, the “Miracle on Ice” USA-Russia semifinal game that aired on tape delay on Feb 22, 1980 from the Lake Placid Games drew 34.2 million average viewers.

“We’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat to observe a nation of fans that appreciates winter sports, is proud of their winter sport heritage and celebrates success - no matter which country wins - so it was only fitting yesterday when Sidney Crosby scored the goal to give Canadians the gold that meant so much to this country,” said Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. “‘O Canada’ will never be the same.”

TOPS 2002 SALT LAKE GOLD MEDAL GAME BY 10.5 MILLION VIEWERS: The 27.6 million viewers for Sunday’s gold medal game was 10.5 million more (up 61 percent) from the Canada-USA gold medal game from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics (17.1 million viewers).

The 15.2/30 rating for yesterday’s game was four-and-a-half rating points higher than the 10.7/24 for the 2002 gold medal game and was the highest-rated hockey game of any kind since the USA vs. Finland 1980 gold medal game (23.2/61). The “Miracle on Ice” semifinal game between the USA and Russia had a household rating of a 23.9/37.

The audience peaked at 34.8 million viewers (18.6/34 hh rating) from 5:30-6 p.m. ET, when the USA’s Zach Parise (New Jersey Devils) sent the game to overtime with the tying goal with just 24.4 seconds left in regulation. Canada’s Sydney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins) gave Canada the gold medal, their 14th of the Winter Games (most of any country) when he got the puck past the USA’s Ryan Miller (Buffalo Sabres) just over seven minutes into overtime.

Below is a list of the highest-rated and most watched hockey broadcasts of all time broken down by: Household Rating/Share, Average audience (people 2+) and Total Audience:
GAME Avg. Viewers Total Viewers RTG/SH
USA/Russia, 1980 (Miracle on Ice) 34.2 million 51.9 million 23.9/37
USA/Finland, 1980 (gold medal) 32.8 million 55.6 million 23.2/61
USA/Canada, 2010 (gold medal) 27.6 million n/a 15.2/30
USA/Canada, 2002 (gold medal) 17.1 million 38 million 10.7/24
Unified/USA, 1992 (semifinal) 11.7 million 25 million 9.3/32

AUDIENCE FOR GOLD MEDAL GAME SURPASSES TOP EVENTS:
The 27.6 million average viewers for the USA-Canada Gold Medal hockey game surpassed the following during the 2009-2010 seasons:
2010 Grammy Awards 25.9 million
2010 Rose Bowl 24.0 million
2009 World Series 4 22.8 million (Gm. 4 was most watched)
2009 NCAA Basketball Championship 17.6 million
2009 NBA Finals - Game 4 16.0 million (Gm. 4 was most watched)
2010 Daytona 500 16.0 million
2009 Masters Golf - Sunday 14.3 million

Top 25 Metered Markets for USA-Canada Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Game:
1. Buffalo, 32.6/51
2. Pittsburgh, 31.9/50
3. Detroit, 26.9/47
4. Minneapolis, 26.4/53
5. Milwaukee, 24.5/43
6. Boston, 24.1/46
7. Chicago, 23.5/41
8. Columbus, 22.3/37
9. Denver, 22.2/42
10. Philadelphia, 20.9/35
11. West Palm Beach, 20.3/33
12. Kansas City, 19.5/35
13. St. Louis, 19.4/39
14. Seattle, 19.3/45
15. Cincinnati, 19.2/31
16. New York, 19.0/36
17. Hartford, 18.5/30
18. Providence, 18.4/34
T19. Salt Lake City, 18.3/38
T19. Cleveland, 18.3/32
T21. Washington, D.C., 18.1/33
T21. Baltimore, 18.1/32
23. Ft. Myers, 18.0/34
T24. Austin, 17.1/34
T24. Indianapolis, 17.1/29

Isn't the World Cup of Hockey suppose to return next year?

Yeah, that's what they changed the Canada Cup to if I am not mistaken. Again I think it is all leverage the NHL is trying to use.

For all the complaining about NBC's coverage, their curling coverage was that much more baffling. It has to be advertising pressures, but they would consistently go to commercial at the close of each end and then after the 3rd or 4th rock of each end. That is the equivalent of baseball coverage going to commercial after the first at bat of each inning, of football coverage going to the sponsors when it's 2nd and 5. Sometimes, you'd return to the rink and there would only be 4 stones left in the end and you'd wonder what the heck just happened. Bizarre...

Jon, do you or anyone else know what the Canadian ratings are? Would I be wrong in surmising its 70-80% + of the audience there?

I've looked for them high, low, and sideways and don't see anything from yesterday anywhere. I think you're high on your share IIRC though.

CTV Media Site - CTV Olympics

50% watched the entire game, 80% watched some part of the game.

That annoyed the shit out of me too. They wouldn't even give you a recap of what happened.

Well damn, I even tried their site, either it went up right after I was looking or I just totally missed it somehow.

1. Buffalo, 32.6/51
2. Pittsburgh, 31.9/50
3. Detroit, 26.9/47
4. Minneapolis, 26.4/53
5. Milwaukee, 24.5/43
6. Boston, 24.1/46
7. Chicago, 23.5/41
8. Columbus, 22.3/37
9. Denver, 22.2/42
10. Philadelphia, 20.9/35
11. West Palm Beach, 20.3/33
12. Kansas City, 19.5/35
13. St. Louis, 19.4/39
14. Seattle, 19.3/45
15. Cincinnati, 19.2/31
16. New York, 19.0/36
17. Hartford, 18.5/30
18. Providence, 18.4/34
T19. Salt Lake City, 18.3/38
T19. Cleveland, 18.3/32
T21. Washington, D.C., 18.1/33
T21. Baltimore, 18.1/32
23. Ft. Myers, 18.0/34
T24. Austin, 17.1/34
T24. Indianapolis, 17.1[/b]

Non NHL markets bolded, granted some like Hartford and others probably get Bruins, etc... but there are a lot of markets there like Seattle where hockey just isn't available and that is the problem. If there were 3-5 games a week in those markets I could see people getting attached to the sports, but when people have to activly search for it they probably wont.

Obviously this is meaningless in real terms, but on Saturday night during the Men's Curling Gold medal game, I took my dog and son out for a walk after the 5th end. In every single house that had a visible TV through their windows, the curling game was on. Every single one. It was kind of cool.

Probably because you only get 1 channel in Winnipeg. ;)

I must be the only one who found curling utterly unwatchable. :)

I was going to make a post where I set aside the non-NHL markets but I'm glad someone already did it. Milwaukee? Interesting. Then in 10-20, kindof a who's who of cities that have either had a team or might want a team, for the most part.

SI

Yes, you are ;)

That's ok. You have other good qualities... (I think) ;)

SI

how is this possible
every year we get a thread about the nhl in kansas city

Get a hockey team to West Palm Beach!

Based on the listings I've found, WPB gets the Panthers (71 games on FSN-Florida, 45 of those in HD), Baltimore should be getting the Caps on CSN-Washington, I know the Thrashers are available [i] ... in Georgia and South Carolina, as well as Alabama (excluding the Huntsville/Decatur DMA) and Mississippi (excluding Mississippi counties in the Memphis DMA and the counties of Pontotoc, Union, Lee, Itawamba, Prentiss and Tishomingo in the Columbus/Tupelo/West Point DMA), the Hurricanes have a similar footprint around NC as well, Kansas City should get the Blues via FSN-Midwest (rather than FSN-KC), and so on.

Point being, that there aren't as many markets where games aren't available this list might indicate. Only reason I kind of knew that was having bought spots in hockey on the RSN's out of market a few (such as the Caps in Baltimore, and the Hurricanes/Thrashers which used to have to share a footprint with split feeds on the old SportsSouth).

Milwaukee gets a reduced schedule of Wild games (how reduced I haven't dug up yet) via FSN-Wisconsin which was spun off from FSN-North which has the rights.

I'd venture a lot of the interest in Wisconsin was because of the former Wisconsin Badgers playing for both teams. College Hockey is fairly big here. NHL? Not so much.

I'm with you my alien friend.

Actually, I am surprised by the overall positive response to curling. Until you understand the strategy it is really only mildly interesting. Once you understand the game it is a perfect spectator sport from the point of questioning and debating the various shot options as the game progresses.

Then again, this forum has a lot of strategy gamers on it who are naturally "armchair skips".

The hockey ratings here were insane when you consider the large immigrant population from non-northern climates.

My parents have never been interested in sports their entire lives. Sunday, they watched their first complete hockey game. Dad is 87 and Mom is 79. How cool is that?