750,000 Viewers Watch Basketball Semi-final

For immediate release

THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION VIEWERS WATCH BASKETBALL

Well over 750,000* New Zealanders tuned in to watch the Tall Blacks play Yugoslavia at the 2002 Basketball World Championship Semi-Finals in Indianapolis yesterday morning.

Ratings peaked just before 10.30am on Sunday morning when more than 793,000 viewers tuned in to watch the live coverage of the match between the Tall Blacks and Yugoslavia. Throughout this game, an average of 674,000 people were watching the New Zealand team taking on the world champions.

"These television viewing figures are in the league of such tremendously popular sporting events as TV ONE's live coverage of the Bledisloe Cup and Rugby World Cup, New Zealand winning the America's Cup in 1995 and the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics," explained TVNZ's Head of Production and Sport, Denis Harvey.

"It is great to see that following three years of supporting New Zealand Basketball with television coverage, ONE Sport's promotion of this booming code has helped to build a fanbase that readily embraced the Tall Blacks during their stunning performance at the World Championships."

"Last week in response to tremendous viewer demand, TVNZ pulled out all of the stops to bring viewers additional live coverage. We would like to take this opportunity to thank viewers for their feedback, patience and understanding as TV ONE's schedule changed at very short notice to accommodate these games," said Mr Harvey.

* Source: AC Nielsen

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