NFL Draft, Clippers-Spurs lead cable sports nets for Thursday April 30, 2015

With no Johnny Manziel-esque drama looming it seemed a given that this year’s coverage of the first round of the NFL Draft would be down from last year’s record-setting viewership and that was indeed the case.

ESPN’s coverage averaged 7.026 million viewers with a 3.0 adults 18-49 rating, down from last year’s 9.943 million viewers and a 4.6 adults 18-49 rating. NFL Network’s coverage averaged 1.816 million viewers with a 0.9 adults 18-49 rating, down from last year’s 2.43 million viewers and a 1.1 adults 18-49 rating.

The Los Angeles Clippers win over the San Antonio Spurs to deadlock the series 3-3 and force a game 7 averaged 3.879 million viewers and a 1.7 adults 18-49 rating on TNT. Earlier, the Chicago Bulls blowout of the Milwaukee Bucks averaged 1.736 million viewers and a 0.7 adults 18-49 rating.

The Washington Capitals win over the New York Rangers in the first game of their second-round series averaged 1.122 million viewers and a 0.4 adults 18-49 rating on NBCSN. The Anaheim Ducks victory over the Calgary Flames in game 1 of that series averaged 479,000 viewers and a 0.2 adults 18-49 rating.

Cable Sports TV Ratings for Thursday April 30, 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…