Turner Sports culminated its coverage of NBA All-Star Weekend festivities with over 7 million viewers for the game from Madison Square Garden on Sunday night.
The 64th annual NBA All-Star Game -- MVP Russell Westbrook scored 41 points to lead the West to a 163-158 win over the East in the highest-scoring showcase to date -- averaged a 4.3 U.S. household rating and 7.2 million viewers to rank as the highest-rated and most-watched sports program of the week.
The audience was down 4% from the 7.5 million for the 2014 contest. The Feb. 15 simulcast on TNT and TBS faced tough competition from NBC's presentation of the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special, which scored 23.1 million watchers, the most for an NBC entertainment show in a non-post-Super Bowl since 2004 (an ER installment following the Frasier finale), and cable's top show, AMC's The Walking Dead.
On Valentine's Day, TNT’s presentation of State Farm All-Star Saturday Night averaged a 3.4 rating and 6.1 million total viewers to stand as the second most-viewed sports program of the week.
In the New York DMA, the telecasts sparked record-setting audiences for NBA All-Star weekend. The NBA All-Star Game simulcast on TNT and TBS earned an 8.8 locally, the highest rating in New York throughout Turner’s history televising the event. State Farm All-Star Saturday Night netted a 7.2 local rating in the Big Apple, the highest on record for the event in the market.
Collectively, NBA All-Star Game and State Farm All-Star Saturday Night content published across Turner’s NBA on TNT and NBA TV accounts via Facebook and Twitter reached a gross audience of more than 150 million fans and followers and generated more than 25 million video views.
According to Social Guide, NBA All-Star events over the course of the weekend airing on Turner networks were the most-discussed programming across all of television.
NBA All-Star content also propelled growth across live video streams, including Turner’s TVE platforms, with nearly a 90% increase for State Farm All-Star Saturday Night and more than 50% amelioration for the NBA All-Star Game, according to Turner officials.
