The NBA stole the show this past week as two Laker games took home the first two spots on the Tunity Analytics Weekly National Out-of-Home Viewer Rankings for the week of March 2. Sunday afternoon’s Lakers-Clippers game on ABC averaged over 1.5MM OOH viewers and peaked at 6:11 PM with over 2MM OOH viewers. The game was the most-watched program of the week and second most-watched NBA game of the season. Friday night’s potential NBA Finals preview between the Bucks and Lakers on ESPN averaged over 1MM OOH viewers and peaked at 11:48 PM with 1.27MM OOH viewers – the fourth most-watched NBA game of the season. 

Although the UNC men’s basketball team is having a subpar season, UNC-Duke matchups never disappoint. The game on ESPN averaged nearly 1MM OOH viewers, good for the third spot on the Top Ten. NASCAR’s FanShield 500 on FOX snagged the fourth spot as it averaged 965k OOH viewers. The final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational on NBC averaged 790k OOH viewers and took home the fifth spot. 

ESPN’s UCF 248 and Pardon the Interruption claimed the eighth and tenth spots, respectively. Fox News added three programs as two episodes of The Five and one episode of America’s Newsroom cracked the Top Ten. 

In addition to the sports programs that made the Top Ten Overall, another episode of Pardon the Interruption, Manchester City-Manchester United and an episode of SportsCenter rounded out the Top Ten Sports. ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption and SportsCenter have long been OOH viewer favorites. A classic EPL matchup between Manchester City and Manchester United on NBC was able to snag the ninth spot on the Top Ten Sports. The game was the sixth most-watched EPL game of the season and most-watched game since September. 

NBC’s Little Big Shots and FOX’s The Simpsons took home the top two spots on the Top Ten Entertainment, respectively. Both were benefited from solid lead-ins as the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational aired on NBC before Little Big Shots and the FanShield 500 aired on FOX before The Simpsons. Familiar faces to the Top Ten Entertainment include The Bachelor, American Idol, God Friended Me, Saturday Night Live, The Voice, NCIS: Los Angeles and Chicago Fire. In total, NBC accounted for four programs, ABC accounted for three, CBS accounted for two and FOX accounted for one.

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Paul Lindstrom is the Head of Research and Analytics at Tunity, an out-of-home (OOH) data measurement company and consumer application which allows users to hear live audio from muted televisions directly through their mobile devices. In his role, Paul supports the creation of various data products, including Tunity's new analytics product, and helps set strategic vision and direction. Prior to Tunity, Paul spent over four decades at Nielsen, where he was responsible for designing and deploying innovative tools, systems, studies, and measurements for new media outlets. He also directed sales, operations, and strategy for Nielsen Strategic Media Research and Nielsen On Location. Paul is an innovation, research, and strategy executive with a successful track record in pioneering business development, product leadership, and research design. His combination of experience with media and custom research, location, and OOH measurements at Nielsen have allowed him to develop a new metric to capture OOH viewing insights based on Tunity’s traffic, tuning, and attention data.