Seemingly everybody loves the Jazz - with the possible exception of the management and staff of the local TV stations that aren't carrying the NBA playoffs.

The Jazz are attracting so many viewers these days that their games are putting a serious dent in the ratings of competing stations during the current May sweeps period. (For the sweeps-to-date, all of the local newscasts are down at least 1 rating point from a year ago - and that's based on the competition from just four prime-time games through last Thursday.)

Last week, for example, the two weeknight Jazz-Lakers games on KJZZ-Ch. 14 completed dominated the competition. The Tuesday, May 4, game averaged a 29.8 rating and a 43 share. (A 29.8 rating translates into about 188,000 homes. A 43 share means that 43 percent of the homes watching TV at the time were tuned into the game.)

Heck, the pregame show did a 6.5 rating and the postgame did an 8.7 rating.

Thursday's game average was a bit less impressive - a 24.6/36. But that's a bit deceptive - the numbers dropped off in the last hour of the Jazz loss. The first half's numbers pretty much matched Tuesday's game. (And Thursday's pregame did a 9.1 and the postgame did a 6.5)

The fact is that even those numbers don't reflect everyone who was watching the game. Currently, Nielsen doesn't measure cable viewing in the overnight ratings, and there were undoubtedly some Utah viewers tuned in to TNT.

These big prime-time ratings leave the local newscasts in the dust, and tend to leave the local sportscasters looking a bit silly. You can almost feel sorry for the guys on Channels 2, 4 and 5 and 13 who were forced to do "updates" in the midst of the games - and doing live standups from the Delta Center that were all but worthless.

(Maybe it's only my imagination, but the sports guys look almost sheepish doing them.)

First, if you really care about the score you're probably watching. And, second, if you somehow forgot to tune in, the "updates" serve as advertisements for Ch. 14.

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And don't think they're not loving it at KJZZ, which is usually sort of the odd man out in the local TV game.

On the other hand,KSL isn't exactly unhappy about the weekend numbers. Game 1 of the Jazz-Lakers series pulled a 27.1 rating and a 58 share on sunday,March 4. Game 4 on Saturday averaged a 28.3 rating and ahuge 68 share. (It got as high as a 33.1/71 in one quarter hour.)

In other words, the Jazz are not only beating up on the clippers and the Lakers, but they're beating up on everyone from George Clooney to Dick Nourse.

And it's almost scary to think what the ratings will be like if the Jazz make it into the NBA Finals.

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