By Spencer Kitley

An eclectic mix of events, blended with a pair of the NBA’s ultra-successful Overtime live chats comprised the CoveritLive weekly Social TV top five last week. The end of the first half of the NBA season and the league’s All-Star weekend entertained viewers, while the controversial story of a once-revered Olympian, a special video game live web broadcast and a WWE pay-per-view filled out the diverse lineup of top events.

Throughout the NBA’s All-Star Game festivities in Houston, Texas last weekend, Turner Sports and the NBA entertained fans with their dashboard live video, interactive questions and CiL live chat. An audience of more than 450,000 joined the conversation throughout the weekend as they viewed the game and other festivities on Turner’s TNT. Turner and the NBA also claimed the No. 3 position in the weekly rankings for its Social TV coverage of the 2012 NBA Finals rematch between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder. The Overtime event capped the first half of the NBA’s regular-season and entertained more than 91,000 viewers.

The controversial story of South African Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius and the murder allegations he currently faces were a hot topic among TV viewers around the world. Swedish publisher, Aftonbladet landed in the No. 2 position and drew more than 162,000 viewers to its live coverage of the Pistorious news as it broke live on television.

A unique entry in the rankings claimed the fourth spot in the weekly ratings, as Electronic Arts’ The Sims 3 broadcasted a live video feed and an accompanying live chat as it introduced its new University Life release. EA’s Sims 3 experience intrigued an audience of almost 40,000 curious viewers.

The final spot in the weekly ratings was owned by the WWE for its live chat that accompanied its Elimination Chamber pay-per-view event. Almost 24,000 got social during the event as WWE Champion The Rock defeated CM Punk in the main event.

*The CoveritLive blog releases its weekly social TV rankings every Monday. The data for the ranking system is exclusive to events that are tied to a television broadcast and the viewer metric is defined as a reader that actively clicks into a CiL event.