TNT rode the end of its coverage of the NBA and NHL conference championship playoff rounds, leading up to each league’s finals, to another win in the primetime cable ratings during the final full week of May. 

TNT averaged 3.2 million viewers during the week of May 22-May 28 to top all cable networks for the sixth straight week, according to Nielsen figures supplied by Fox News Channel. TNT was propelled by its Boston Celtics-Miami Heat NBA Eastern Conference finals coverage, with the May 27 Game 6 of the series averaging 8.7 million viewers. 

TNT will air the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, pitting the Vegas Golden Knights against the Florida Panthers, starting this Saturday (June 3). 

ESPN finished second for the week with 1.8 million viewers, powered by 8.2 million viewers tuning into its May 22 coverage of Game 4 of the Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers NBA Western Conference finals. The NBA Finals between the Heat and Nuggets begins Thursday night (June 1) on ESPN sister network ABC. 

Fox News finished third for the week with 1.3 million viewers, followed by MSNBC with 1.1 million viewers and HGTV with 781,000 watchers. INSP was the sixth most-watched network for the week with 693,000 viewers, followed by Discovery Channel (630,000 viewers), History (576,000), TLC (567,000) and Hallmark Channel (539,000).

Fox News took top honors in the total day category for the 21st consecutive week with 1 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (734,000 viewers), TNT (703,000), ESPN (599,000) and HGTV (420,000), according to Nielsen.  

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, said it will carry all of the remaining Stanley Cup semifinal games, starting Monday.

Coverage of the games will be available on Peacock Premium, a step up from the free version of the service.

NBC Sports will also be televising the National Hockey League playoff games on cable networks NBCSN or USA Network. They will also appear on NBC Sports digital platforms.

Rights to NHL games will be shifting from NBCU properties to Disney’s ESPN and Turner Sports under a new deal reached in March. 

On Monday, Peacock coverage will begin with the NHL Live pregame show at 8:30 p.m. ET. After the game it will have the NHL Overtime post-game coverage.

Sports have been moving to streaming, with the new NFL deals signed by NBCUniversal and other TV rights holders including the ability to put games on their emerging direct-to-consumer platforms.

The first rounds of the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League postseason have delivered strong ratings performances for cable networks.

The opening round of the NBA Playoffs, which began April 14 and ended April 29, averaged 3.3 million viewers across five networks — ABC, TNT, ESPN, NBA TV and ESPN2. That’s a 3% increase compared to the same period in 2017, one of the league’s most-watched postseasons in several years.

Further, the league said it generated more than 1.3 billion video views during the first round of the playoffs across its social media accounts, up 58% from last year’s first round.

The NBA’s postseason performance is an extension of the league’s most-watched regular season since 2013-14. The appeal of established teams like the defending champion Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers, as well as resurgent campaigns from the likes of the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics, have helped drive postseason ratings, network executives said.

“It’s reflective of the great storylines the NBA presents during the post season as well as the superstars who up their games when the bright lights are on, and that benefits all of us,” Scooter Vertino, senior vice president of production and programming for Turner Sports and content, programming and production for NBA Digital, said.

Individually, TNT’s 23 live game telecasts drew an average of 3.6 million viewers, up 5% compared to the same period in 2017 and the network’s most-watched first round coverage since 2014.

Game 4 of the Cavaliers-Indiana Pacers series on TNT April 22 was cable’s most-watched first-round NBA Playoffs contest since 2012.

“This is one of those perfect storms where we would ride that momentum as far as it will take us,” Vertino said. “We expect the audience will continue to grow as the stakes get higher as the rounds progress.”

On the ice, NBC Sports Group is enjoying the best start to its NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs coverage in six years. Through the first three weeks of the playoffs, which began April 11, combined coverage on NBCSN, CNBC, Golf Channel, USA Network and broadcast network NBC — as well as NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app — averaged 891,000 viewers in total audience delivery, which network officials said was the best performance since 2014. On the digital side, NBC Sports said its live streaming coverage of 51 playoff games has already set records for total live minutes (245 million) and unique users (1.7 million).

NBC Sports executive producer and president of production Sam Flood said the programmer’s coverage of the NHL playoffs is thriving despite the playoff absence of four of the popular “Original Six” franchises: the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers.

“It’s been a great start to the playoffs,” he said. “The on-ice action has been as compelling as you can ask for, and it’s gotten people to pay attention at a higher level than in the past few years, so it’s very exciting.”

Pictured: The resurgence of franchises like the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics is boosting ratings for the NBA Playoffs.

Their Game 7 overtime win over the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks propelled the Los Angeles Kings to the Stanly Cup Final and helped NBCSN hoist its best hockey audience to date.

With its June 1 contest -- LA knocked off Chicago 5-4 in the extra session – NBCSN netted nearly 4.14 million viewers, according to Nielsen data to rank as the most-viewed non-Stanley Cup Final in NHL history, eclipsing the 4.09 million watchers for ESPN’s coverage of Game 7 Eastern Conference finals match between the Carolina Panthers-Pittsburgh Penguins in 1996.

Kings-Blackhawks surpassed the 4.10 million it drew for the United States’  shootout win over Russia from the Sochi Olympics and the 4.001 million watchers for Game 3 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final  between Chicago and Boston.  

The delivery helped NBC Sports Group boost its average for 86 NHL playoff telecasts across NBCSN,NBC and CNBC to 1.19 million watchers, 11% more than for the first three rounds of the NHL’s 2013 postseason.

NBC Sports Group averaged 1.19 million viewers for 86 playoff games across NBC/NBCSN/CNBC to date, up 11% from 1.07 million viewers for the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs last year. This year's 1.19 million viewer-average is the best since Fox/ESPN/ESPN2 scored with 1.24 million viewers in 1997.

More specifically, NBCSN, which has aired tk games to date and CNBC (15) have combined to average 1.045 million watchers, 16% ahead of last year's tally during the lockout-truncated campaign, and the most on cable since ESPN notched 1.062 million in 1996. From a ratings perspective, the cable contests were up 13% to a 0.62 from a 0.55 mark in 2013.

However, the conference finals’ performance was down 23% to 2.05 million viewers on average from 2.65 million a year ago, when Boston swept the popular Penquins in four and Chicago dethroned the then-champion Kings in five contests.

This year’s Eastern Conference Finals featured the New York Rangers defeating the Montreal Canadiens in six games, resulting in the Broadway Blueshirts reaching the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1994, when they ended a 54-year title drought.

Although Les Habitants have historically been the NHL’s top team with 23 championships, they have not been in the title round since beating Wayne Gretzky’s Kings in 1993 and Nielsen doesn’t tally viewers from across the border in estimating U.S. audiences.

Multichannel News got the Blues with NBC Sports Puckcakes game. As in St. Louis Blues.

In a riff on “You snooze you lose,”  or in this case you don’t get to choose, or chew (as many), yours truly was the addressee of NBC Sports Group’s and Civic Entertainment Group’s latest Stanley Cup experiential promotion. But working from home on April 16 resulted in my missing the two referee-uniformed delivery men, who brought the game, carrying Puck Cakes, limited-edition variations of the acclaimed MallowMore dessert from chef Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery. Each was adorned with an edible logo of one of the 16 NHL teams comprising the 2014 playoff field, which is being presented Stateside by NBCSN, NBC, CNBC and NHL Network.

By the time my stake was claimed, only the Blues were left. That’s not a bad thing, according to Melissa Andus, HR exec at MCN publisher NewBay Media, and co-founder of Faceoff Violation hockey website. She thinks St. Louis, which was ravaged by injury down the stretch, can make a run out West if they get healthy.  By the way, what should have been Andus’s Rangers Puck Cake was iced before it got to her desk.

The Puckcakes game was sent to teams, celebrity hockey fans, social influencers and TV and radio personalities, who subsequently talked up the NHL’s new playoff format, which doesn’t include reseeding in the event of upsets as in seasons past.  John Miller, chief marketing officer of NBC Sports Group, said the promotion did the trick, generating plenty of social media buzz and on-air chatter.  “We received about a 10-fold media value, than if we had bought the time,” Miller said.

NBC’s marketing maven also provided some level of comfort, explaining that the Puckcakes game box ticketed for NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus office was intercepted by the finance department.

Miller and Civic Entertainment, though, wisely anticipated that the Bouchon Puck Cakes wouldn’t survive the spring: The game’s bracket setup housing the cakes can still showcase the side of the individual puck’s packaging that sports the NHL’s team name and logo, which can be advanced round by round in pursuit of Lord Stanley’s Cup. Go Blues!