The St. Louis Blues’ first-ever Stanley Cup title drew a big audience for NBC Wednesday — bigger than any NHL game of the past quarter-century. ABC’s game show lineup, meanwhile, put up solid numbers, and Fox’s First Responders Live got off to a modest start.
The Blues’ 4-1 win over the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals delivered a 6.2 household rating in metered markets, the highest such number for an NHL game since 1994. It’s 8 percent higher than the last time the Stanley Cup Finals went to a seventh game (5.72 for Bruins-Vancouver Canucks in 2011) and 6 percent ahead of NBC’s previous best for an NHL game (5.84 for the deciding game between the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers in 2010).
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Wednesday’s broadcast jumped 33 percent over Sunday’s Game 6 in the early numbers. In the finals, it delivered 8.72 million viewers, the most for NBC since it resumed broadcasting the Stanley Cup Finals in 2006. The previous record was 8.54 million for Game 7 in 2011.
With live streaming added, the total audience for Wednesday’s game was 8.91 million. The seven-game series averaged 5.47 million including streaming (5.33 million for TV only), the best average viewership since 2015.
Elsewhere Wednesday, the time-period premiere of Press Your Luck scored a 0.9 rating among adults 18-49 and 4.88 million viewers, up from its post-Bachelorette sneak peek on Tuesday (0.7, 3.1 million). The premieres of Card Sharks (0.9, 4.4 million, adjusting down to 0.8 in the finals) and Match Game (0.8, 3.88 million) also performed pretty well, with Match Game improving on its summer debut last year (0.7, 3.5 million).
The Amazing Race held steady at 0.8 and 4.62 million viewers on CBS. NCIS: The Cases They Can’t Forget posted a 0.4 in the 18-49 demographic.
The Dick Wolf-produced First Responders Live drew a 0.5 demo rating and 2.1 million viewers for Fox, on par with a typical episode of the show it emulates, A&E’s Live PD. Masterchef matched last week’s 0.7. The CW’s Jane the Virgin was also steady at 0.2.
NBC easily led the night in adults 18-49 with a 2.5 rating, pending updates for its live broadcast. ABC finished second at 0.8, followed by Fox, 0.6, and CBS and Telemundo, 0.5 each. Univision averaged 0.3 and The CW 0.2.
Bookmark THR.com/Ratings for more ratings news and numbers.
June 13, 1:30 p.m. Updated with final Stanley Cup ratings and an adjustment for Card Sharks.
