TV Ratings: NBA Finals Rise, Hit Audience High With Game 5

Matt Webb Mitovich
·1 min read

In the latest TV ratings, ABC’s coverage of the NBA Finals Game 5 delivered the series’ largest audience yet — 5.7 million total viewers, per Nielsen fast nationals — while rising a tenth in the demo from Game 4, with a 2.0.

Both sets of preliminary numbers will of course adjust up in the Nielsen finals, though this year’s NBA Finals thus far have been drawing a little more than half the audience of 2019’s, which was held as usual in the spring (and under very different circumstances).

Opposite hoops….

CBS | The Greatest #AtHome Videos (3.2 mil/0.4) and Undercover Boss (2.6 mil/0.3) both dipped in the demo from last week, though the former netted Friday’s largest audience for non-NBA programming.

FOX | Friday Night SmackDown (2.1 mil/0.6) was steady and scored Friday’s best rating for non-NBA programming.

THE CW | Masters of Illusion (605K/0.1) and World’s Funniest Animals (704K/0.1) were both steady.

The Live+Same Day numbers reported in our ratings column do not reflect a show’s overall performance, given the increased use of delayed playback via DVR and streaming platforms, plus out-of-home viewing. These numbers (Nielsen fast nationals, unless denoted as finals) instead aim to simply illustrate trends or superlatives. Warning: Contents may be hot!

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