Yesterday’s action-packed Wednesday Rivalry Night game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins produced a .55 household rating, the highest regular season mark in NBC Sports Network history.
That 6-5 Flyers win also drew the second highest average of viewers in the network’s history, only following another Wednesday Rivalry Night game (Boston Bruins-New York Rangers on Jan. 23) for the top spot in that category. Wednesday Rivalry Night has clearly been a hit so far, as the short-running special claimed four of the five regular season averages for viewership in NBC Sports Network history:
Rangers-Bruins, Jan. 23, 2013: 956K viewers
Flyers-Penguins, Feb. 20, 2013: 901K viewers
Flyers-Bruins, Oct. 6, 2011: 874K viewers (the only game on this list that wasn’t a Wednesday Rivalry Night match)
Blackhawks-Wild, Jan. 30, 2013: 827K viewers
Bruins-Canadiens, Feb. 6, 2013: 771K viewers
NBC Sports Network was the highest rated channel in Pittsburgh and the top-rated cable network in Philadelphia during the game.
This is all impressive stuff, especially since there have only been five weeks of Wednesday Rivalry Night so far. Perhaps that series will take all of the top five spots by the end of the 2013 season?
(All information via an NBC press release.)