Not even the NBA Finals could hold its own this low-watched summer.
ABC: Thanks to the NBA FINALS GAME 1, ABC was up 267% for the night versus the same Thursday last year, but that’s apples and oranges. A more meaningful comparison is Thursday, June 14, 2012, which also featured an NBA Finals game. Last night’s Game 1 between San Antonio and Miami scored a 4.9 adult 18-49 rating in the fast nationals, which we are adjusting up to a 5.8 rating (anticipating the proper accounting of the early west coast viewing of this live telecast). If the 5.8 rating holds in the official nationals, that would be down 18% from Game 2 last year on June 14, which scored a 7.1. (Last year’s Game 1, which was played on a Tuesday, had a final 6.9 rating.) Not a promising start for the NBA, which will hope this year’s series goes at least as long if not longer than last year’s 5 games. ABC started the night with a special 1/2-hour JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE, which rated at 1.8 (3rd place for the half-hour), and the GAME 1 PRE-GAME SHOW had a 2.2, narrowly winning its slot.
NBC: SAVE ME, which manages against all reason to get appreciably worse in quality, climbed a tick to 0.7. After 0.6/0.7 sitcom reruns, HANNIBAL slipped 0.1 to 0.9, behind even the CBS rerun against it.
FOX: HELL’S KITCHEN had a 2.1 at 8PM, even with last week. Despite the strong competition on ABC, DOES SOMEONE HAVE TO GO? rose 0.2 to 1.2, although it helped that the show was the only original non-sports programming in the hour.
CBS: THE BIG BANG THEORY continues to do better in reruns than many comedies these days do with new episodes, winning the 8PM slot with a 2.2. The 2 1/2 MEN rerun that followed was still fairly strong at 1.7, but then the night fell to 1.1/1.0 with more reruns.
CW: Reruns at 0.3/0.2.
Fridays are barely being programmed by the networks this summer, and the only fresh programming tonight comes from newsmagazines. On cable, DA VINCI’S DEMONS finishes its first season on Starz. Saturday is mostly sports, with STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS on NBC, INDYCAR RACING on ABC and MLB BASEBALL on FOX, and Sunday brings the next game in the NBA Finals against the perpetually low-rated but high-prestige TONY AWARDS on CBS.
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