This season's ratings started plummeting after a brutal monthlong Bulls slump in January and early February that raised questions about whether the team would make the playoffs.

At the time, ratings had dipped to a 3.52 average. But they fell by far more as reality set in that the offseason would begin earlier than usual.

No Bulls game on CSN this season rated higher than the 4.71 average for all of last season. The five highest-rated games of the season came Jan. 5 or earlier:

1. 4.52 — Dec. 18 vs. Detroit

2. 4.31 — Nov. 13 vs. Charlotte

3. 4.29 — Jan. 5 vs. Milwaukee

4. 4.25 — Jan. 1 vs. New York

5. 4.10 —Oct. 30 at Detroit

WGN-TV/Channel 9, which aired 23 Bulls games this season, declines to share its ratings average, though its trend is likely similar.

The Bulls' ratings tumble adds to a dip in Chicago Blackhawks TV ratings this season to mark just the second time in the past decade that both teams' viewership fell.

Luckily for the network, which is co-owned by the Bulls, Blackhawks, White Sox, Cubs and NBCUniversal, the Cubs will likely more than offset those viewership decreases coming off of a deep postseason run.

CSN also has a silver lining in its second season of streaming Bulls games on CSNChicago.com and on mobile devices through the NBC Sports Live Extra app.

The number of unique visitors to the live streams increased by 20 percent to 192,200, while the number of minutes watched jumped by 30 percent to 10.9 million, or about 250,000 minutes of streaming per game.

It will take several seasons before we can adequately judge those figures, but the network is surely pleased to see them moving in the right direction.