Bulls-Sonics Second-Best Series in NBA History

By LEE MARGULIES

June 19, 1996 12 AM PT

With help from the Seattle SuperSonics, who unexpectedly made the NBA Finals exciting, NBC scored a slam dunk in the TV ratings last week. Figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research showed that the six-game series, which the Chicago Bulls wrapped up Sunday, registered the second-best ratings in NBA history, trailing only the 1993 championship.

And the deciding game Sunday, in which Scottie Pippen of the Bulls scored 17 points, was the most-watched basketball contest in NBA history, NBC said, with about 60 million people watching at least some of it. The previous record had been 58.5 million for Game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals between the Bulls and the Phoenix Suns.

With strong showings from “Seinfeld,” “ER,” “Caroline in the City” and its Tuesday installment of “Dateline,” NBC accounted for nine of the top 10 prime-time programs last week. ABC’s “Home Improvement” was the lone outsider.

NBC didn’t fare as well with its coverage of the Olympic track and field trials for U.S. athletes on Saturday. That drew only about one-quarter of the basketball crowd and ranked 76th among the week’s 107 prime-time network programs.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Southland Ratings

Here are A. C. Nielsen’s Top 10 prime-time programs in the Los Angeles area during the same week. Each rating point equals 50,064 households.

*--*

Program Network Rating 1. NBA Postgame (Sun.) KNBC 15.9 2. Seinfeld KNBC 14.4 3. Frasier KNBC 13.0 4. Fred Roggins Post-Game KNBC 12.2 5. Home Improvement KABC 11.7 -- NYPD Blue KABC 11.7 7. Friends KNBC 11.4 -- Wings KNBC 11.4 9. 3rd Rock From the Sun KNBC 11.3 10. Dateline NBC (Tue.) KNBC 11.2

*--*

Weekly Averages

NBC: 11.2

ABC: 7.4

CBS: 7.2

FOX: 4.3

UPN: 2.1

WB: 2.0

Season to Date

NBC: 11.5

ABC: 10.3

CBS: 9.4