Elvis Costello has said this season of Spectacle will be his last. Too busy, he reports, although CTV is probably OK with that. Friday’s second season premiere, featuring U2, drew just 350,000 viewers.
Costello got run over by Santa’s sleigh over at CBC, where 1,351,000 were watching The Santa Clause 2 according to overnight estimates from BBM Canada. “Polar” opposite lead-ins boosted the CBC National News closer to CTV’s tally than since Mansbridge stopped sitting, with CBC at 10 getting 671,000 vs. CTV at 11’s 924,000. Both were bested by Global National’s 1,029,000 at 5:30.
Last Thursday, the numbers were decidedly reversed, with CBC striking out with a prime time Steven & Chris special (390,000) and a weak Border (435,000). CTV ran the table with Big Bang (938,000), CSI (2,618,000) and The Mentalist (2,171,000). Result: CBC News at 10: 486,000, CTV News at 11 1,214,000.
Global beat everything and everybody Thursday night with another strong Survivor (2,775,000). A channel stayed on the fringes with Fringe (497,000), while City found 355,000 home for 30 Rock. TSN drew more than twice that with curling (800,000).
SATURDAY NUMBERS: Hockey Night in Canada (Leafs vs. Capitals), 1,758,000. Game 2 (Vancouver vs. Minn.), 818,000. CTV’s It’s Wonderful Life: 835,000. Global’s Saturday Night Live (495,000) at 11:30 beat the combined total of all of their Saturday prime time shows, including reruns of Melrose Place (102,000) and The Jane Show (55,000).
SUNDAY NUMBERS: The Christmas network had plenty to Ho-Ho-Ho about with CBC drawing 1,478,000 with The Santa Clause: The Escape Clause at 7 followed by a 45-year-old Rudolph Rankin-Bass special (1,203,000) and that creepy, dead-eyed Bi-Polar Express movie at 9 (887,000). CTV missed The Amazing Race and Desperate Housewives but stayed competitive with Transformers (1,277,000) and Oprah/Obama (1,259,000). Global rolled with their usual Simpsons (834,000) Family Guy (714,000) one-two.

4 Comments

  1. Actually, it was just Bono and The Edge. It’s easy to see why Spectacle doesn’t generate high numbers. It doesn’t live up to its name. There’s far too much mutual asskissing going on and not a lot of revelation. Costello takes way too long to get to his questions and when something interesting pops up like Bono revealing that Ian McCulloch of Echo & The Bunnymen wanted to kill him, the host doesn’t bother with a follow-up to get to the bottom of that. That being said, I could listen to anyone from U2 talk all day long even if they do retell old war stories. And it was neat to finally hear that song that was written for Frank Sinatra that he never recorded.

  2. Hello. Unfortunately, it’s necessary to stop the broadcasting of the show when it stops to be popular and profitable. People should do everything they can to increase their popularity on TV. One of the services that can be found online is the essay writing.

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