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Round 1 of NBA Playoffs on ABC/ESPN Sets Viewership Records

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Round 1 of NBA Playoffs on ABC/ESPN Sets Viewership Records

The opening round of the NBA Playoffs certainly lived up to, if not exceeded expectations, and viewership across platforms owned by The Walt Disney Company set multiple new records. The network announced Tuesday that ABC and ESPN broadcasts of NBA playoff games averaged 4.52 million viewers, a record for the networks and a figure up 18% from last year. All but one of the opening-round series went more than four games, with the Golden State Warriors tilt with the Sacramento Kings being the only series that went the maximum of seven games.

In fact, Game 7 on Sunday night averaged 9.84 million viewers, which rendered it the most-watched NBA playoff game in the first round over the last 24 years, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. The broadcast reached a maximum of 11.3 million viewers in the quarter hour beginning at 6 p.m. EST. It is ABC’s largest accumulated audience ever recorded for an NBA playoff game outside of the NBA Finals.

The NBA enjoyed tremendous digital success too with its app and social media platforms amassing a total of 2.6 billion views, 46% higher than last year’s total. Digital engagement peaked on Sunday, April 30 when the mobile app evinced the most active users it ever recorded in a single day.

Leading up to Game 7, the battle between the Warriors and Kings was drawing extensive appeal from viewers, setting a record of its own. The penultimate game of the series, which took place from Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., averaged 4.98 million viewers and peaked at 10:30 p.m. EST with a total audience of 6.51 million. Game 6 of the series marks the most-watched first round playoff game ever broadcast on ESPN.

The series between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Los Angeles Lakers had no shortage of talking points, especially after Grizzlies forward Dillon Brooks called Lakers superstar and the Association’s all-time leading scorer LeBron James “old” and someone he did not respect. LeBron James issued a presumable response to Brooks on Twitter after the Lakers eliminated the Grizzlies. 

Likely due to the intrigue surrounding the situation Brooks cultivated, along with the ardent fanbase of the Lakers, ESPN reported an average audience of 4.64 million viewers during Game 6. It marked the third-most watched first-round NBA playoff game on ESPN and peaked at 5.7 million viewers at approximately 10:50 p.m. EST.

The Los Angeles Lakers will face the Golden State Warriors beginning Tuesday night at 10 p.m. EST/7 p.m. PST on TNT. The network will also broadcast Game 2 of the New York Knicks matchup against the Miami Heat and reveal the Kia NBA Most Valuable Player during the pregame show at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST.

FantasyPros Partners With The Volume

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The Volume continues to, well, turn up the volume.

It was announced that the digital media venture, founded by FOX Sports Radio host Colin Cowherd, is adding audiovisual content from FantasyPros to its growing, eclectic repertoire of sports media offerings. Its content centers around football. The company’s YouTube channel alone has 189,000 subscribers.

Two podcasts from the company will join The Volume’s podcast network, one of which is the daily FantasyPros Football Podcast. The FantasyPros Dynasty Podcast, which is released once per week, is the other as The Volume aims to expand its reach and continue its upward trajectory.

“We’re thrilled to bring our fantasy football podcasts to The Volume Network to share our insights and analysis with their audience of millions of sports fans,” FantasyPros CEO and co-founder David Kim said in a statement. “Showcasing our podcasts alongside Colin Cowherd and so many notable shows within their network is a fantastic opportunity, and we look forward to working with The Volume team to elevate our shows to new levels.”

The Volume currently has a variety of podcasts, some of which are hosted by active players in the National Basketball Association and the National Football League. Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green recently made headlines following the team’s Game 7 defeat of the Sacramento Kings when he used his podcast to criticize Sacramento Kings forward Domantas Sabonis for refusing to express sportsmanship by shaking hands.

“We’ve been paying close attention to FantasyPros football podcasts and their rapid organic growth in only five years,” Cowherd said in a statement. “We wanted to add the FantasyPros football shows to The Volume for the same reason they have built such a big fan base: it’s smart, informative and a lot of fun to listen to.”

While speaking at the 2023 BSM Summit from Los Angeles, Calif., Cowherd expressed how he views The Volume as a media company more than a podcast company. He also articulated how the company is following content from around the industry and tailoring itself to what its audience desires and working to discover new ways to best reach it.

“If you look at what we did – Draymond Green, second-round pick. Richard Sherman, fifth-round pick,” Cowherd said at the event. “I hired a bunch of people I thought [are] grinders. Somebody’s cast them aside; they’ve been doubted.”

According to Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post, FantasyPros football podcasts and their associated talent will appear on additional content from The Volume and embark on cross-promotional endeavors.

Keith Olbermann: ‘CNN is Now Fox News’ After Donald Trump Town Hall Announcement

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Yesterday, a surprise announcement that former President Donald Trump would appear on CNN for the first time in seven years as part of a town hall event in New Hampshire struck many surprise. Keith Olbermann was one of them who was surprised but wasn’t pleasantly receptive to the news.

“Chris Licht’s transformation of CNN into a journalistic whorehouse is complete,” Olbermann said to begin his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast Tuesday. “CNN is now bribing Donald Trump to accept its offer for a town hall…during which CNN says questions will be asked by New Hampshire Republicans and undecided voters and implied that its only involvement will be having the former Tucker Carlson website employee Kaitlan Collins moderate.

“I used that word ‘bribing’ deliberately because this is more than just sacrificing the charged remains of CNN’s credibility to Trump. There is a quid-pro-quo here.”

Olbermann then read reporting from The Guardian that claimed there was an unspoken agreement between CNN and Trump officials that more of his “campaign surrogates” will appear on its programs after accepting the invitation to appear on the network.

He then criticized CNN staffers like Wolf Blitzer, Jim Acosta, Jake Tapper, and Jim Sciutto, by name for failing to stand up to CEO Chris Licht over the decision to air a town hall with the former President.

“Not one of whom quit in protest of this prostituting of their news brand or their personal reputations. Not one of whom even let out an anonymous squeak of regret to a real journalist covering this story. It must now be assumed anyone who works on or for CNN are all lying, because they work for a liar, and they appear on a channel dedicated to lying, which has just sold the few remaining shards of its soul to the greatest liar of our time in Trump. CNN is now Fox News.”

Adam Crowley: I’m Rooting For More Scheduled Double-Headers

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The Pittsburgh Pirates swept their doubleheader against the Washington Nationals and currently hold the best record in the National League. That’s very different from what was predicted. Tuesday morning on 93.7 The Fan, The Fan Morning Show producer Adam Crowley expressed a desire for more scheduled doubleheaders, specifically on weekends, so fans can enjoy a long day at the ballpark watching their favorite team.

“First pitch [at] 1:00, and the way that the games move now quickly, you get a little bit of a break before the second game [starts] at 6,” Crowley said. “I like the traditional doubleheaders, but I’d love to see MLB schedule a couple of these a season. You go, you buy your ticket, you stay there all day.”

Doubleheaders are generally a topic of disdain with many around the game of baseball since they are rarely what is scheduled. Yet with a litany of wet weather in the Northeast over the last week, many of them have been played already this season. This past weekend alone, three doubleheaders were played in Detroit, Washington, D.C., and New York, respectively. Going into the 2023 season, just two split doubleheaders were included in the schedule.

Three weeks into the regular season, Major League Baseball’s average time of a nine-inning game clocks in at 2 hours and 37 minutes, a 27-minute decrease from last season. Additionally, the league did away with seven-inning doubleheaders, instituted during the pandemic-stricken 60-game regular season. Extra innings still begin with an automatic runner on second base in an effort to hasten play.

Despite the initial schedule containing few doubleheaders, Crowley is encouraging Major League Baseball to consider implementing them into its planning for seasons ahead rather than utilizing them to make up for rainouts. In large part, this can be attributed to the league’s success in expediting the pace of play, most notably through the pitch clock, and infusing the sport with more offensive because of limited defensive shifts and enlarged bases.

“I love scheduled doubleheaders,” Crowley said. “I’m rooting for more of these.”

Former Employees of Steven Crowder Detail Patterns of Abuse

BNM Staff
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Former Employees of Steven Crowder Detail Patterns of Abuse

After video footage of alleged emotional abuse toward his estranged wife was uncovered, conservative commentator Steven Crowder claimed the footage was “misleadingly edited”. However, 10 former employees have now gone on the record to claim they worked under similar conditions with Crowder.

In a report from The New York Post, the former employees use terms like “volatile”, “abusive”, and “unreasonable micromanager” to describe working conditions under Crowder.

A portion of the Post’s report claims Crowder would “scream at his employees — including his own father”. Six of the ten former employees interviewed claimed he would “expose his genitals” at times.

“That might not be the Steven you see on his show, but that was the real Steven,” one former employee said.

“We don’t want Steven to suffer. We just want the abuse to stop or at least let future employees know what they’re getting themselves into,”  another former employee commented.

Crowder’s behavior has risen to the forefront after revealing he has been going through what he called an “increasingly horrendous divorce”.

The Louder with Crowder host moved his video show to Rumble earlier this year after publicly alleging that conservative digital outlet The Daily Wire offered him a contract that featured “unreasonable demands for control”, calling the terms “immoral”. He has since traded barb with The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens, going as far to threaten legal action for “extorting” him by alluding to problems in his personal life.

Mike Gallagher: After Tucker Carlson Firing ‘Any of Us Could Be Next’

BNM Staff
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Mike Gallagher: After Tucker Carlson Firing ‘Any of Us Could Be Next’

The firing by Fox News of Tucker Carlson remains one of the largest talking points for conservative radio hosts. Mike Gallagher believes Carlson was the target of an attack on free speech, and if that can claim his professional career, talk radio hosts could be next.

During a discussion with AM 660 The Answer host Mark Davis, Gallagher — who was on vacation in London, and found a studio to host his show from after Carlson’s firing last week — said Carlson’s insistence on covering controversial topics is ultimately what led to his dismissal.

“I always had a sense that he was always on thin ice because of where he dared go,” Gallagher said. “He went into areas that nobody else ever touched, and I kept thinking ‘Man, it’s incredible that they let him do this night after night after night’, until they of course decided they’re not gonna let him do it night after night after night. It’s really a shameful thing to witness.”

Gallagher then argued that Carlson’s firing was connected to free speech issues that Twitter owner Elon Musk is purporting to fight. “He tipped over every sacred cow there was,” Gallagher said of Carlson.

“I think it shows (Sean) Hannity is right in that you should always be careful in rooting for someone’s professional demise. He’s never been a fan of cancel culture, and he’s always said that. I’ve always thought that was an interesting position that he’s staked out, and he’s said it for years. He’s right. Any of us could be next. Talk radio could be next. Don’t think they’re not emboldened by Tucker being let go. They’re gonna come after everybody they disagree with.”

Nielsen Adjustment Makes Super Bowl LVII Most-Watched of All Time

BSM Staff
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Nielsen Adjustment Makes Super Bowl LVII Most-Watched of All Time

As the sports calendar turns each year, it is a virtual guarantee that the Super Bowl will be at the top of the ratings ladder. The question is whether or not it will outperform the previous year, and the metrics are especially important to broadcast networks, advertisers and media executives.

Three months after the game, Nielsen Media Research is refining its viewership measurement of Super Bowl LVII to an average of 115.1 million viewers across FOX, FOX Deportes and digital platforms. The change makes it the most viewed television program in American history.

The achievement caps off a stellar year for FOX Sports, during which it broadcast the 2022 FIFA World Cup; inked a new deal with the Big 12; and announced plans to add Derek Jeter to its baseball coverage and the aforementioned Brady to its football coverage among other things. FOX Sports previously announced an average audience of 113 million viewers for Super Bowl LVII, which placed it as the third most-viewed Super Bowl of all time behind Super Bowl XLIX (NBC Sports) and Super Bowl LI (FOX Sports). The latter game contained the extraordinary 25-point comeback by Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to defeat the Atlanta Falcons.

The research company’s previous measurement accidentally associated over 1 million viewers to an internal NFL Network feed of the game when, in reality, those views were with FOX Sports. Moreover, the probe of the error revealed an additional 1 million viewers that were left unaccounted for because of an error related to out-of-home viewership. Nielsen Media Research discovered its mistake independently and made FOX Sports and the National Football League aware.

“We strive to meet the highest standards for transparency and accuracy in audience measurement,” Nielsen Media Research said in a statement provided to Bill Shea and Richard Deistch of The Athletic. “The Super Bowl continues to be a unique media event in terms of its size and diversity in how audiences watch the game. We appreciate the support and collaboration from our partners at FOX and the NFL to correct previously unknown errors to ultimately provide a more accurate measure for this year’s total audience for the game.”

The development renders Super Bowl LVII, in which the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 to win its second Super Bowl championship in the last four years, the most-watched Super Bowl of all time. Its average viewership finished ahead of Super Bowl XLIX, broadcast in 2015 by NBC, and marks a historic moment for FOX Sports with its new lead commentary booth of Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen. The network expects to add Tom Brady in the fold at the start of the 2024 season on a 10-year contract worth a reported $375 million.

Sarah Palin: Fox News ‘Didn’t Have the Guts’ To Tell Me I Was Fired

BNM Staff
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Sarah Palin: Fox News ‘Didn’t Have the Guts’ To Tell Me I Was Fired

Fox News has caught the ire of some political commentators after its decision to dismiss Tucker Carlson last week. Former Fox News contributor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin took aim at the way the network operates and shared an anecdote of her time there.

During an appearance on Eric Bolling The Balance on Newsmax Monday, Palin claimed that when she “got canned” by the network in 2015, no one from the network ever reached out to her.

“I don’t want to interject any of my bias in the way that they operate, but I will tell you one thing about the way they operate,” Palin said. “When I was informed that I was no longer working for them, I wasn’t even informed! They didn’t have the guts to call me. They called my now ex-husband. And I thought that was really weird and weak. And I just said I wouldn’t speak ill of them, but I just spoke ill of them, yes.”

Palin’s comments came after she said Fox News and other “woke, disconnected elites who call the shows in lame-stream media” have underestimated the size and scale of what American news media consumers are looking for.

The former Alaska Governor worked as a contributor to Fox News from 2010 to 2015, before the network severed ties with her. She was hired by former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who once claimed “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings”. The two had a tumultuous relationship, that included Palin claiming she felt “uncomfortable” during a meeting with the disgraced former executive.

Bolling –a former Fox News host who departed the network after sexual harassment allegations he has continually denied — argued that the network “always represented a gamut of conservative voices”, but has now “gotten greedy” by trying to court a wider audience by shifting to the left.

NFL Network, NFL RedZone Return to Comcast XFinity

BSM Staff
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NFL Network, NFL RedZone Return to Comcast XFinity

The deal got worked out quietly, but less than 24 hours after Comcast dropped NFL Media channels from its XFinity lineup, both NFL Network and NFL RedZone are back.

Mike Florio reports that a deal was struck between the heads of both organizations. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts spoke on Monday afternoon.

No formal announcement came from the conversation. Florio reports that most viewers with complaints and questions found out by asking Comcast customer service on Twitter. “We have renewed our agreement with the NFL Network. At this time, all content has been restored, and you are able to access NFL Network programming as normal,” was the stock response.

An earlier deal between the league and Comcast expired on May 1. Terms of a new deal were not disclosed.

Jimmy Pitaro: ESPN Going Direct to Consumer ‘a When, Not an If’

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Jimmy Pitaro and Bob Iger have spoken nearly every day since Iger returned as head of the Walt Disney Company according to Bloomberg. The bulk of their conversations center on the future of ESPN and when the network leaves linear television and becomes a streaming service.

“We’re going to get to a point where we take our entire network, our flagship programming, and make it available direct to consumer,” Pitaro said. “That’s a ‘when,’ not an ‘if’….We’re only going to do it when it makes sense for our business and for our bottom line.”

There is no rush to leave the traditional cable bundle. Although the number of US households that use cable or satellite TV continues to shrink, ESPN generated $28 billion in revenue for Disney last year.

But there is an eye toward the future. ESPN has already been emphasizing streaming rights in deals with college conferences, Major League Baseball, the NFL and the NHL. They are expected to be a major part of this summer’s negotiations with the NBA as well.

“I’m confident we’re going to see eye-to-eye on how to prioritize streaming,” Pitaro told Bloomberg of what he anticipates in trying to extend that broadcast contract.

Any decision Disney makes about the future of ESPN will be informed by the numbers. The network has lost 25 million subscribers in the last decade and ESPN+ about $400 million during the last fiscal year according to Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall. While the company still has plenty of money, ESPN will be forced to stand on its own for the first time later this year when it becomes its own division of the Walt Disney Company, a move many speculate signals a coming spin-off.

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