ABC wins in Nielsen ratings behind classic Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals series

NBA Finals help ABC to big Nielsen ratings week

NEW YORK — A classic Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals series is proving to be a summertime tonic for ABC.

Three games of the series helped ABC to its best summer week in the ratings in six years, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday. Sunday’s Game 5 was the most-watched NBA Finals game in five years, since Game 7 of a Detroit-San Antonio series in 2005.

Basketball was so important that ABC won the week even though it had only one other program — “The Bachelorette” — among Nielsen’s 30 most popular shows last week.

Fox is taking advantage of the lack of competition by increasing the buzz factor of “Glee” even further. An original episode of the teen musical was behind only the basketball games, NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and an “NCIS” rerun in viewership last week.

The Chicago Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup victory over the Philadelphia Flyers last week was seen on NBC by 8.28 million, the most-watched NHL game in 36 years, Nielsen said.

For the week, ABC averaged 8 million viewers (4.9 rating, 9 share) and easily won among the 18-to-49-year-old age group, too. CBS had 7.1 million viewers (4.7, 8), Fox had 5.3 million and NBC 5.1 million (both 3.2, 6), ION Television had 1.2 million (0.8, 1) and the CW had 930,000 (0.6, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.2 million average last week (1.6 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 860,000 (0.4, 1), Azteca had 160,000 and Estrella had 130,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.5 million viewers (5.1, 11). ABC’s “World News” was second with 6.9 million (4.8, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.4 million viewers (3.7, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of June 7-13, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NBA Finals: L.A. Lakers vs. Boston, Game 5, ABC, 18.65 million; NBA Finals: L.A. Lakers vs. Boston, Game 4, ABC, 16.37 million; NBA Finals: L.A. Lakers vs. Boston, Game 3, ABC, 15.96 million; “America’s Got Talent,” NBC, 13.09 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 11.26 million; “Glee,” Fox, 11.08 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 9.84 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 9.57 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 9.12 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.04 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

Online:

www.nielsenmedia.com