Stanley Cup finals draw low ratings in US

Anaheim

‘s 3-2 victory over

Ottawa in the
opener of the Stanley Cup finals got a 0.72 cable rating on Versus and was
watched in 523,000 households in the

United States.

The rating
was down 18 percent from

Carolina’s 5-4 victory
over

Edmonton
in last year’s opener, which received a 0.88 cable rating (611,000 homes) on
OLN, as the same network was known then.

This
year’s game had a 1.7 cable rating in

Los
Angeles (95,000 households), Versus’ best NHL rating
in that market. The game had a 0.7 cable rating in

Chicago,
0.6 in

Boston and 0.3 in

New
York, but had a 3.9 in

Buffalo, 2.2
in

Denver and 2.0 in

Pittsburgh.

Versus,
which is available to 72 million homes, also was slated to televise Game 2
Wednesday night, with the remainder of the series on NBC.

The rating
for Sunday’s rain-interrupted and rain-shortened Indy 500 on ABC dropped 16
percent, to 4.3 from 5.1 last year. The Indy race aired from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
EDT and 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

NASCAR’s
Coca-Cola 600, televised by Fox from 5:45 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. EDT, had a 4.5
rating, down 12 percent from last year’s 5.1. The Coca-Cola 600 has had a larger
TV audience than the Indy 500 for seven straight years.