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late afternoon Sunday > early afternoon Sunday and Clips-Mavs had the benefit of a great Knicks/76ers game as a lead-in.

NBA playoff viewership sees modest decline through second weekend of play, down only 6% from last year (and up from 2022) -- though challenges lie ahead.

Saturday's Nuggets-Lakers Game 4 top game of postseason thus far:
sportsmediawatch.com/2024/04/nba-pl…

The Varsity
* Charter-Paramount to sign short-term extension today. Deal likely.
* DirecTV/Diamond agree to a deal. Comcast is next.
* What do WBD's backend rights cover in NBA talks?
* Will NFL taking an equity stake in ESPN?
* RIP Tom Phillips.

puck.news/newsletter_con…

Weekend sports TV viewing was topped by NBA playoffs on ABC:

Nuggets/Lakers Sat, 8:30p: 5.669m
Clippers/Mavs: Sun, 3:54p: 5.561m
Knicks/76ers, Sun, 1p: 4.651m

Timberwolves/Suns late Sunday night on TNT averaged 3.624m

If TNT loses the NBA, I don't think any content is available that would justify the fees distributors pay to carry TNT.

A Charter/CBS retrans deal is getting close per John Ourand

Price still up in the air, but like theDisney deal, it will include free ad-supported Paramount+ for Spectrum subs.

The last hurrah of the cable bundle dependent networks over big sports rights is more interesting than I expected, as their survival imperative drives up the bids!

NEW PODCAST: How do you televise an Olympics in 2024?:

The guest is Molly Solomon, the executive producer and president of NBC Olympics production.

link.chtbl.com/SportsMediaPod…

Comcast (NBC) to offer massive rights fee in bid to steal NBA from WBD (TNT), per Wall Street Journal. Comcast and Disney deals would themselves add up to $5B/year, per report. sportsmediawatch.com/2024/04/nba-me…

Friday (4/26) sports viewership:
-- NFL Draft night two declines from last year
-- NBA benefits from decision to schedule tripleheader, rather than overlapping games
sportsmediawatch.com/2024/04/friday…

To calm everyone down, Paramount Global has chosen the soothing Masters theme song as its pre-earnings call music.

Touché and good job!

It continues to surprise me that the only post-reboot commentary about Undisputed's ratings I ever see are from Sports Media Watch.

Credit where it's due. Guessing most stuff isn't 'a day or less' for me, but plenty of stuff is. For a while any order took nearly a week and I was considering dumping Prime. Now I'm back to 2 days or less for most things.

cnbc.com/2024/04/29/ama…

🚨2024 Round 1 Viewership🚨

*12.1 million avg. viewers (TV+Digital) -- up +6% vs. 2023

*Total unduplicated audience of 34.3 million -- highest since 2021

*More than 275,000 fans attended, breaking all-time Day 1 record of 200,000 (Nashville, 2019)

tinyurl.com/fv7kxwtu