Jeremy Lin Drives Knicks Ratings, Outdraws as 'Linsanity' Takes New York

New York's obsession with first year Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin is good business for MSG Network.

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The regional cable network, owned by Knicks venue Madison Square Garden, has seen an 87 percent jump in ratings since the zeitgeist-ing Harvard grad joined the team's starting lineup.

The Knicks took their sixth straight win on Tuesday night. And in edging out the Toronto Raptors, they also brought in MSG its highest-rated Knicks game since Carmelo Anthony moved over from the Denver Nuggets last February. The game peaked at a 7.84 rating among households, with 579,204 households, and finishing with a 4.66 rating and 344,272 households. At its highest, the game brought in 843,276 total viewers.

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The 87 percent bump over the previous season average (1.81 in HH and 133,719 households) has Lin's games pulling in an average 3.39 rating and 250,447 households.  

MSG's Ford Knicks Post-Game Show has fared even better, raking in its highest rating on the network (a 3.67 HH rating) since 2004 when the network officially kept post-game ratings -- and more than double Anthony's inaugural post-game coverage.

The increased ratings come in spite of the fact that about 2 million Time Warner Cable subscribers in the New York City area have been without MSG since Jan. 1 thanks to an ongoing carriage fee dispute between MSG Media and the nation’s second-largest cable provider.

All of this has prompted the network to respond with a one-on-one interview special, already on the schedule for Friday night. Following the Knicks-Hornets game, at 11:00 p.m. ET, MSG will debut Jeremy Lin: To The Point. The half-hour special, one of the first of its kind with Lin, will see him fielding questions from Knicks broadcaster Spero Dedes.