Wednesday night’s NBC telecast of the Bulls-Knicks playoff game was the second-highest rated non-Finals contest in NBA history.
The game at Madison Square Garden had a 15.6 national Nielsen rating with a 27 share. Only Game 6 of the 1973 Eastern Conference finals between Boston and New York had a higher rating, 16.3/30.
Helping NBC achieve such a high mark Wednesday night was WMAQ-Ch. 5, which had a 50.4 rating with a 67 share. One local rating point represents 31,000 TV households; a share is a percentage of sets in use. By contrast, NBC’s New York affiliate had a 25.0 rating with a 37 share.
For the 1993 playoffs, the network is averaging a 7.2 rating with a 20 share for 18 telecasts, up 6 percent from last season’s 6.8 rating with a 19 share.
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Last year’s Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, which pitted the Bulls against the Cleveland Cavaliers (also on a Wednesday night), had only a 12.2 national rating with a 22 share. So the Bulls-Knicks Game 5 produced a 28 percent increase.