NESN and Comcast SportsNet New England have made their mark on New England as two of the region's top local sports stations, and both were presented with an opportunity to boost their followers during the Boston Bruins run to the Stanley Cup Final.
As the flagship station of the Bruins, one would expect NESN to have a firm grasp on the ratings when it came to the pre- and postgame shows, since the broadcast rights for the Final belonged to NBC. However, that wasn't the case as Chad Finn of The Boston Globe pointed out.
Based on its 27-year association with the Bruins alone, NESN should have been the natural destination. The Nielsen ratings suggested the choice wasn't so apparent after all. NESN earned a 1.7 rating for its 1-hour-45-minute postgame show, while CSNNE earned a 1.6 for its two-hour program. On the night the Bruins won the Cup, NESN earned a ratings victory so narrow that CSNNE viewed it as confirmation that its approach to covering Boston sports is working. (via Boston Globe)
Finn goes on to detail ongoing battle for viewers between the two regional sports networks, noting that the approach is different for both networks when it comes to their coverage philosophy. Read the rest of his story here.