Cleveland viewers helping NBA Finals to record TV ratings

cleveland.com

Basketball fans are eating up the NBA Finals, and the appetite in Cleveland is bigger than any other city that doesn’t have a team involved.

Through three games, the 2012 NBA championship between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder are the most-watched Finals ever on ABC, averaging 16,099,000 viewers, according to Nielsen’s Fast Nationals.

Sunday night’s Game 3 delivered 15,452,000 viewers and increased by double digits among men age 18 to 34 and all viewers 18 to 34 from the corresponding game in 2011.

Cleveland is the fifth-highest-rated market for the first three games and is 50 percent higher than the national average, said Gary Stark, director of programming and research at WEWS Channel 5.

The top four markets are Oklahoma City, Miami, Tulsa, Okla., and West Palm Beach, Fla.

For Game 3 on Sunday night, Oklahoma City had a 42 rating, Miami, 30; Tulsa, 24; West Palm Beach, 18.2; and Cleveland, 18.1.

The national average is between 11 and 12, Stark said.