Last Friday was a busy one for Brian Jennings. But the NHL executive vice president of marketing took time out of his afternoon to talk with me about the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
To Jennings, the first round could not be going any better. We talked about some of the major accomplishments thus far for the NHL.
Jennings on the surge in new media » We have worked hard to super-serve our fans on our Web site. We have full games, highlights, interviews and special shows and we make sure all the content goes up as soon as the games are over. It is great to see all that hard work has paid off with record numbers of fans visiting NHL.com. Normally we don’t see these kinds of numbers until the second round but [the numbers] are up on page views, video streams viewed and full games watched.
Jennings on the record TV ratings in North America » Both VERSUS and NBC have seen double digit increases in ratings. Our partners in Canada, TSN and RDS, have set all-time ratings records with the Caps-Habs series and CBC also is seeing higher first-round ratings over last year. Locally, on regional cable networks, we have seen triple digit increases in ratings in cities like Phoenix [and] Nashville and double digit increases in Los Angeles — [teams that] were not in the playoffs last season. Meanwhile, Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Buffalo and Boston all are seeing double digit increases over last season’s ratings for first-round games.
Jennings on the worldwide success » Our numbers in Europe have been off the charts. We have shown over 300 regular season games through our partners like ESPN America. So now that we are in the playoffs, given the six- to eight-hour time difference, we are still seeing record ratings. Online fans in Russia, Serbia, Finland, Sweden and Germany are all up over more than 40 percent over last season and they are staying over 42 percent longer online and consuming more content. So we are up on all the key areas on all of our platforms. So yes, you bet I am happy.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on washingtonexaminer.com.
