Who was the big winner last night? Obama? Hillary? John McCain?
No, silly, it was The Border, which won this week’s TV Feeds My Family Poll, topping the list of Canadian-produced shows most likely headed to a U.S. network. The Border won with 25% of the vote, followed–surprisingly–by just banished to Fridays jPod, with 19% and Global’s The Guard with 16%. Sophie–which really does have a U.S. deal (it will air there on ABC Family)–drew a mere 7% here.
There are reports that several U.S. broadcasters are interested in The Border, including CBS, ABC, TNT and USA.
The bad news for The Border is that it sank to its lowest audience level ever Monday night, an estimated 567,000 viewers–down nearly 200,000 viewers from the Monday before. It was also the week the viewers went away from The Week The Women Went, with the CBC reality series down to 548,000 viewers.
Where’d everybody go? Global had a new episode of Prison Break at 8 and that drew 1,104,000. Corner Gas won the hour with 1,345,000 (followed by the debut of the CBS sitcom Welcome To The Captain, which drew 1,043,000 in Canada and finished second in its timeslot Stateside).
The Border dip could just be a hiccup. The Rick Mercer Report, CBC’s most consistent hit, shed 300,000 viewers Jan. 29 after hitting a series high of 1.2 million the week before. When I asked Mercer about the ratings fluctuation yesterday, he wrote it off to a better publicity photo the week before, better stunts (people just love seeing Rick train with synchronized swimmers?) or who the hell knows.
Meanwhile, thanks to The Super Bowl, Fox had the Top-7 shows in the U.S. for the week of Jan. 28, with House, American Idol (twice) and The Moment Of Truth all huge hits last week. Lost also roared back for ABC, capturing 16.14 million viewers–its biggest night since November of 2006. It did even better proportionally in Canada on CTV, where 1,834,000 tuned in to last Thursday’s season premiere.
2 Comments
“Where’d everybody go?”
Short answer is: they were watching something better.
CBC did a lot of ‘spin’ trying to make people believe that the terrible show “The Border” was a hit at 700 thousand viewers (that’s with a TV writers strike and nothing else on but repeats!).
There was a new Prison Break and Sarah Connor Chronicles and -poof- viewership dropped by 1/3rd.
As a friend of mine once said: “well, Americans seem to know how to make Canadian programs, because Canadians keep watching them.”
I do hope the CBC stops funding their ‘friends’ who keep trying to make watered down clones of other shows and start investing in new and innovative programs.
CBC shows were cancelled years back with the same ratings (or better) than the shows they now boast are hits.