Childish and booooooring.
Posted on 05/12/2009 9:32:41 AM PDT by buccaneer81
NHL ping.
What the puck?
I live near Indy; our cable provider does not carry Versus. Versus carries the IRL. We can’t see most of the races. My boys like hockey, but lament that they have to watch webcasts to actually see any. Sometimes NBC would rather show replays of last year’s snowboarding events than hockey.
I know Versus wants to become an alternative sports cable channel, but it’s a long flight of stairs. That’s my rant for the day.
From what I can tell, the NHL playoffs aren’t getting a 1.0 — http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/16/nhl-night-one-playoff-ratings-for-various-games-on-various-networks/16900
From what I can tell, it peaked at 0.4.
That’s understandable.
Versus needs to spend a buck or two on advertising. They do absolutely none in my area. And they're not in HD here, either.
If I was the hockey commissioner and trying to attract new fans I would essentially give the programming away to bigger networks to get more eyes on it. Not bury it away on a little-known network. Die-hard hockey fans will find it but few others. And hockey gets marginalized.
Ask anyone (for example Howard Stern) to have moved to satellite. Their listeners have fallen off a cliff and it is unlikely that someone will just dial on in. How many new listeners is Stern getting these days? The same thing will happen to the NHL - except that it started from a much weaker position.
At least the numbers, miniscule as they may be, are going up.
ESPN would double those numbers even in a bizarre series like Atlanta-Phoenix.
I know here it is.We get it in HD on our cable system and the games look great.
A Red Wings-Hawks Conference Final would be delicious.
I know here it is=I know where it is
the versus deal is a joke. pbr, irl, and bass fishing are the only things on that network most of the time, it shows a game a week during the season and then everyone’s supposed to remember that it exists come april. bettman is an idiot.
fire bettman, send phoenix, florida, la, and the islanders to canada. arizona doesn’t care about the coyotes, florida seems to forget it has a second team, la’s team is in anaheim, and the islanders are stuck in one of the worst facilities in all of professional sports AND they’re overshadowed by the Rangers and Devils.
get rid of the trapezoid, and stop hyping up crosby at the expense of every other player in the league.
if you’re going to partner up with NBC, get PRIME TIME games on the air. sunday afternoons during football season is not a way to get ratings.
i love doc emerick, but can’t they find someone else? i’m tired of them stealing my play-by-play guy for a game i’m not watching.
Right on, bro. And then a Wings/Pens rematch from last year.
The Versus deal has been bad, bad, bad for the NHL.
Back when ESPN had the contract, there were frequently showing 4-5 national games per week between ESPN and ESPN2, and they were wall-to-wall for playoff coverage, showing games simultaneously on the two channels when necessary.
I always had to search for games on Versus during the regular season, and half the playoff games aren’t on national TV. I’m sure Boston and Carolina fans loved the fact that they weren’t been shown at all for the first half of their series, due to the PIT-WAS marquee matchup (which has certainly lived up to its billing!).
I grew up outside Toronto (Detroit can call itself Hockey Town but Toronto is the real Hockey Town) where there was 2 seasons — hockey season and street hockey season when the snow melts. Hockey is on 4-5 nights of the week on free TV and on cable (CBC free and TSN on cable, plus Radio Canada — French CBC) from October to April. Excellent commentators who speak to a knowledgeable audience.
Leafs fans are like Chicago Cubs fans. Very loyal, very critical and always hopeful. Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967 — the last year of the original 6, before expansion to 12 teams that year. Even though the Blue Jays have had good seasons and won the World Series back to back in ‘92 and ‘93 and probably would have had a shot in the strike-shortened ‘94, baseball fans in Toronto would mostly tell you they are hockey fans if prioritizing, then baseball, then football or another sport.
I have watched very little hockey lately especially since my local teams are out of the playoffs (Devils and Rangers). I am sure I would watch more hockey if ESPN still had NHL coverage. Bettman needs to rethink his TV strategy and maybe cut back on the money-losing teams like Phoenix and focus on getting the biggest audience possible for hockey games and playoffs.
A fantastic series. Lives up to the hype.
You want viewers on Versus? You need more Bobke on the coverage!
Fighting comprises 1% of the game. I'll take it any day over the trash talking and thuggery of the NBA.
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