NEW YORK – The 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs have benefited from the new broadcast format making every game available to a national audience in the U.S. for the first time. More than 60 million individual viewers tuned in for all or part of the first round on national and regional sports network telecasts. In the United States alone, more than 39 million individuals watched all or part of the first round either on NBC, NBC Sports Network, CNBC, NHL Network or an RSN, and 21.2 million watched across Canada on CBC, TSN, TSN2, RDS, RDS2 and RDSI.
“Having every game nationally broadcast is allowing our fans to get engaged with the story lines from the very beginning,” said NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins. “With so many great match-ups, one-goal games, overtimes and the unpredictability that comes with the Stanley Cup Playoffs, fans are showing up in record numbers across multiple platforms. It shows us there is more room for growth as we make it easier for both avid and casual fans to follow the Stanley Cup Playoffs.”
NHL.com also showed impressive gains in traffic for the first round of the playoffs. The site attracted a record 15 million unique visitors, an increase of 11 percent over last year’s Conference Quarterfinals and averaged 1.8M U.V.s per day, up 13 percent year-over-year. NHL.com page views (13 percent), visits (23 percent) and video starts (29 percent) also were up significantly.
Fans logged on through their mobile phones in record numbers as well, with mobile web page views up 46 percent for the first round. Average daily mobile app visits were up a remarkable 105 percent compared to the regular season, demonstrating the significance of Stanley Cup Playoffs content available through hand-held devices.
The Top 5 Most-Watched Games from the 2012 Conference Quarterfinals:
*Total gross viewership US National, US RSN, and Canada National
1. Boston @ Washington Game 6 April 22
2. Washington @ Boston Game 7 April 25
3. Pittsburgh @ Philadelphia Game 3 April 15
4. Ottawa @ New York Rangers Game 7 April 26
5. Los Angeles @ Vancouver Game 5 April 17
Source: Nielsen Media Research US / BBM Canada / Omniture. All TV data is Live Plus Same Day and is based on a six minute qualifier.
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