Versus Enjoys Hockey Bounce

By Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 3/8/2010 10:08:00 AM

Philadelphia — The U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team’s silver-medal performance in the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics has juiced ratings for Versus’ National Hockey League contests.

In two NHL telecasts after the USA lost to Canada in the Olympics hockey fi nals Feb. 28, Versus has averaged more than 325,000 viewers. That’s up from an average of 283,000 viewers for the 40 games prior to the NHL’s twoweek break last month for the Winter Olympics competition.

The Comcast-owned national service scheduled seven games during the week to take advantage of the momentum coming out of the games, Versus president Jamie Davis said.

Network officials also said visitors to the Versus.com Web site spent 25% more time on its NHL-related pages in the week after the Winter Games than in previous weeks.

“We’re real excited about how hockey did in the Olympics and as a result of that, we’ve been able to carry that momentum out of the Olympics into hockey this week,” Davis said.

Along with having high hopes for the NHL, the network is also bullish on its original-programming offerings, including a new daily sports/talk show — The Daily Line — debuting April 5. The show will offer viewers a preview of the upcoming night in sports, as well as allow sports fans to discuss on-air the latest sports news by calling in, texting, e-mailing or tweeting.

The Daily Line will join weekly sports-commentary series Sports Soup and reality show Sports Jobs With Junior Seau in Versus’ growing original-programming play.

“Original programming is really our top priority right now to help define our brand and differentiate ourselves from the pack,” Davis said. “To be able to launch, starting in April, our own daily show is really exciting. We hope it will become a flagship of the network and really define the brand.”