Third Round Statistics

Unlike earlier rounds in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the third round of the spring tournament contained no barrage of network press releases announcing record audience after record audience. So it’s not that surprising that viewership numbers from the most recent round were unable to keep up with the pace set by its predecessor:


RDS continued to lead the pack with a 0.556 Audience per Household (“APH”) figure for the specialty channel’s coverage of the Canadiens-Flyers series. But the channel’s 1,667,000 average audience for the series was unable to beat the 1,746,000 average and 0.582 APH that was recorded during the preceding Canadiens-Penguins matchup. Likewise, CBC’s 0.206 APH and 2,673,000 average audience for the Canadiens-Flyers fell short of the 0.211 APH and 2,747,000 eyeballs for the Canadiens-Penguins. With the series involving the Flyers lasting only five games compared to the dramatic seven game affair with the Penguins, it’s not surprising that viewership wasn’t at quite the same level. Throw in the fact that Philadelphia doesn’t have the same marketing power of a Sidney Crosby, and both RDS and CBC should be relatively pleased with their numbers for this third round series. Nonetheless, both networks must be wondering what could have been if the Canadiens had prevailed and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final.

Now the other third round series was a little strange from a number of perspectives. First, the Blackhawks-Sharks tilt was split between two Canadian networks, with TSN providing coverage of the first three games and CBC televising the balance of the series. Second, the series involved games at wildly different times, with the first contest being played on a Sunday afternoon, the second on a late night Tuesday, the third on a primetime Friday, and the fourth on a Sunday afternoon again. Finally, the series was a four game sweep, meaning that only one of the games was played in the traditional prime time slot. All of this, not surprisingly, meant lower ratings than would have otherwise been possible. The joint effort between TSN and CBC only earned a 0.129 APH and an average of 1,287,000 viewers – behind every series in this year’s playoffs involving a Canadian team, including a trio of first round matchups.

Just like in the earlier rounds, afternoon games in the third round received less viewers than their evening counterparts, with the Blackhawks-Sharks experiencing a percentage decline in the single digits, while the Canadiens-Flyers saw a 24% drop:


The above “NBC Effect” table shows that, on average, a playoff game loses about 15% of its audience when it gets moved to daylight hours for the American broadcaster. It’s a good thing for CBC and RDS that each game of the Stanley Cup Final is an evening start.

THIS WEEKEND'S GAMES:
Tonight
Blackhawks at Flyers - Game 4, 8 p.m. (CBC)/(RDS)
Saturday
No games scheduled
Sunday
Flyers at Blackhawks - Game 5, 8 p.m. (NBC)/(CBC)/(RDS)