As the Bruins and Flyers get ready for Game 5, we have a couple of notes for you.
First, Comcast SportsNet which has been airing a Bruins postgame show while NESN was unable to air any hockey programming during the first four games of the B’s-Flyers series as NBC and Versus called exclusivity, will again air a postgame show tonight. NESN will have tonight’s game, however, Comcast SportsNet has decided to go up against NESN with a postgame show. In addition, CSN will bring out a big gun to lure viewers. Former Bruins defenseman Ray Bourque will join host Michael Felger and analysts Ted Donato and Tony Amonte. Provided there’s no overtime, the scheduled airtime will be 9:40 tonight.
Next, the NHL is crowing about last Friday’s ratings in Boston for Game 4. It’s saying Versus beat both NESN which carried Red Sox-Yankees and TNT which aired Game 3 of the Cavs-Celtics series.
This is what the NHL says in a press release:
The final local ratings for the market are in and Nielsen is reporting that the Bruins beat out both the Red Sox and the Celtics.
The Bruins averaged a 8.3 local rating on VERSUS, the Red Sox a 6.3 local rating on NESN and the Celtics a 4.1 local rating on ESPN.
In terms of households, the Bruin game delivered 200,000 households, the Red Sox game 153,000 households and the Celtic game 99,000 households.
In terms of total viewers, the Bruins easily beat both of the other local teams averaging 328,000 viewers (Red Sox had 223,000 and Celtics had 142,000 viewers).
Nice to see some good news on the hockey front even if the B’s did not come through on Friday.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
The fact that the Bruins went into OT and the Celtics got crushed played a role in these ratings. I think this was a largely product of the Bruins being in a more competitive game. The Bruins and Celtics have gone head to head before in the recent past and many times the ratings were roughly equal or the Celtics had higher ratings.
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