30 for 30: ‘Sole Man’, ‘Billion Dollar Game,’ PTI, ‘SEC Storied: Shaq & Dale’ lead cable sports nets for Thursday April 16, 2015

Fueled by documentaries, ESPN let in total viewership on Thursday night with the  the 30 for 30 ‘Sole Man’ averaging 954,000 viewers and a 0.5 rating. The 14 minute 30 for 30 short ‘Billion Dollar Game’ averaged 914,000 and ‘SEC Storied: Shaq & Dale’ averaged 684,000.

Pardon the Interruption averaged 851,000 viewers.

The top NHL playoff was Penguins-Rangers which averaged 597,000 and a 0.2 adults 18-49 rating. Reminder, the NBCSN & USA Network coverage are national numbers only and those telecast are blacked out in local markets (i.e. the numbers for New York & Pittsburgh regional sports network viewing are not included).

Cable Sports TV Ratings for Thursday April 16, 2015:

This is sorted from most-watched to least-watched. Using your browser’s search tool (usually CTRL/CMD+F) might be the faster way to go if you’re looking for something specific.

Note to readers using mobile phones: on most phones the tables are easier to read/scroll through if you tilt your phone to landscape orientation.

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Note: viewership of around 100,000 or lower is technically what Nielsen refers to as a “scratch” i.e., not enough Nielsen panelists watched for Nielsen to validate it. There are around 20,000 homes in the Nielsen panel and a bit over 50,000 panelists, where 1 Nielsen panelist watching a whole telecast represents around 5,800 people.  So something averaging a million viewers averaged around 170 people out of the 50K+ panel — small, but still statistically significant. But when there’s a show with 30,000 viewers, that’s only around 5 or 6 Nielsen panelists…