Topped by Tuesday night’s coverage of Game 5 of the Los Angeles Clippers-Golden State Warriors series, TNT has scored a 21% audience gain thus far with the NBA playoffs.
Through 19 telecasts, TNT has averaged a 2.5 U.S. household rating and 3.83 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, netting respective gains of 19% and 21% compared with the same number of telecasts during the 2013 pro basketball postseason.
No doubt drawn in part by the racial controversy surrounding defrocked Clippers owner Donald Sterling, the Los Angeles-Golden State telecast averaged a 3.1 household rating and 4.73 million viewers to rank as the highest-rated and most-viewed NBA first round playoff game on cable since TNT’s presentation of the opener of the Miami-Milwaukee series last year.
Meanwhile, NBA TV’s coverage of Game 5 of the Memphis Grizzlies-Oklahoma City Thunder series notched a 0.6 U.S. household rating and 939,000 viewers to become the most-viewed program in the league’s in-house service’s history.
