• by Wayne Friedman , June 12, 2007

"The Sopranos" has given summer TV something of a shot in the arm. Preliminary numbers for the series finale had "The Sopranos" 15% higher than last year's season finale--a 7.56 household rating. Last year's finale was at a 6.58 rating. The episode was some 43% higher than the episode of a week before.

That puts the last "Sopranos" story around 12 million viewers--which would be roughly at the same levels of the past few years, but perhaps not as high as HBO might have expected, given a beloved series finale.

In New York, Tony Soprano's hometown, the overnight local rating had the "Sopranos" at an 18 rating--more than double the 8.2 that CBS got in New York for the "Tony Awards" telecast.

HBO launched "John From Cincinnati" as a lead-out from the high-rated "Sopranos" ending. It pulled in a respectable--but not super-strong--2.81 household rating.

Only about one-third of all U.S. TV households get HBO. No matter. ABC's coverage of basketball's "NBA Finals" and CBS' "Tony Awards" suffered, in large part, because of the "The Sopranos."

"The 61st Annual Tony Awards" tumbled almost 20% versus a year ago to a 4.2 household rating, down 19% from a 5.2 last year. It was perhaps the worst-rated telecast ever. The show grabbed a 1.2 rating/3 share among adult 18-49 viewers, with about 6.3 million viewers overall.

ABC's "NBA Finals" game between the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers averaged a ho-hum 3.1/8 in 18-49 viewers and 7.7 million viewers overall. That's down 41% from the 5.3/15 in 18-49 viewers and 12.4 million viewers for last year's Game 2 contest between Miami and Dallas.