Just as he once did with an AWOL Dennis Rodman, Michael Jordan brought in the TV ratings Sunday.
Chicago-area Nielsen numbers were up for the second week of “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s 10-part documentary on the Bulls’ 1997-98 championship season and the Jordan era with the franchise it ended.
Running unexpurgated on ESPN and sanitized on ESPN2, Episode 3’s 8 p.m. presentation averaged a combined 13.3 household rating in the Chicago market. That represents 13.3% of the market or roughly 433,100 area homes.
Episode 4’s average household rating was 11.9 in the 9 p.m. hour.
In tandem, those two hours Sunday averaged 12.6, up from 12.2 for the first two episodes, an improvement of roughly 14,650 homes, not counting late-night repeats, streaming or those who recorded the programs for later viewing.
For the sake of comparison, CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Sunday’s next-highest-rated program in the Chicago market, averaged a 7.6 household rating or fewer than 250,000 homes.
Nationally, the two episodes Sunday averaged 5.9 million viewers, with Episode 3 drawing an average of 6.1 million viewers and Episode 4 attracting 5.7 million, ESPN said, citing initial Nielsen estimates.
That’s down slightly from Episodes 1 and 2 last week, which were ESPN’s most-viewed documentary content ever, averaging a combined 6.1 million viewers, according to the network.
The vast majority of Chicago viewers continued to watch the unbleeped version of “The Last Dance” on ESPN, with ESPN2’s presentation of Episodes 3 and 4 averaging only 1.6 and 1.5 household ratings in the market.
Director Jason Hehir’s 10-part documentary is a collaboration of ESPN, Mandalay Sports Media, Jordan’s Jump 23, NBA Entertainment and Netflix, which holds international distribution rights.
Additional episodes will be introduced domestically, two at a time, each Sunday through May 17.
