CBC Dragon’s Roar, Glee Builds at Global, Criminal Still Rules at CTV

Money talks and it’s shouting this season on Dragon’s Den. The red hot venture capital reality series (featuring Arlene Dickinson, right) drew 1,717,000 viewers Wednesday night, right up there with what Hockey Night in Canada has been drawing this PPM powered season. (All figures BBM Canada overnight estimates). It also drew close to a million viewers in the 25-54-year-old demo–shockingly good news at older-skewing CBC.
The series won its timeslot, besting Global’s popular Fox drama Bones (1,358,000) and CTV’s more A-worthy America’s Next Top Model (825,000).
The public network shed nearly a million viewers at 9 with The Tudors (798,000) but that was still enough to lift The National to 743,000 viewers at 10. That’s not bad given The National’s slow start this fall and a promising sign leading into Monday’s news re-boot. Still, think how high Dragon’s Den could drive Mansbridge and Company if CBC could find a way to test it at 9.
As positive as the CBC news number was Wednesday night, it was still only half what CTV scored at 11 with their National News (1,412,000).
CTV’s numbers were powered with a strong night of American imports. Criminal Minds (2,861,000) and CSI: New York (2,417,000) were the two top shows of the night. Global had plenty to sing about at 9, as the No. 1 new show in Canada–Glee–continued to shine, drawing close to 1.5 million viewers.
Global’s embattled P.R. team got the pom-poms out today, boasting that they have the No. 1 show in Canada (House), the No. 1 new comedy (Glee) and the No. 1 new drama (NCIS: Los Angeles). It was the kind of release one is used to seeing from CTV this time of year, and while the season is, like, a month old, let the glee fall where it may at the Asper house of bankruptcy protection.
Other numbers from a busy Wednesday: Jeopardy, 1,157,000 (336,000 25-54), Global National at 6 1,067,000, NHL Hockey 811,000 on TSN, SYTYCD (America, not Canada as incorrectly reported here earlier) 531,000 on A, Modern Family 435,000 on Citytv, SpongeBob SquarePants 415,000 on YTV.