Stocks Down, Minutes, Mercer Up

These are good times to have a topical TV show. Election fever helped boost this season’s second episode of The Rick Mercer Report to 1,155,000 CBC viewers–a mighty leap from the week before.
Ratings for the half-hour right after it–This Hour Has 22 Minutes–also shot up in Week Two, with 787,000 viewers tuning in. They caught more of the cute ‘n’ cringe-worthy antics of Geri Hall who this week gooned federal leaders Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton. At least this week her lonely single girl didn’t get cuffed.
CBC did well on another very competitive night. Mercer came surprisingly close to CTV’s Dancing with the Stars (1,372,000) and was not that far behind House on Global (1,441,000), although that was a rerun episode (already??).
The Tudors (542,000), however, was beheaded at 9 by CTV’s Criminal Minds (2,178,000). Global’s 90210 drew 905,000, almost triple what it did, percentage-wise, in the U.S. on The CW (3.05 million).
The big story last night in the U.S., of course, was the presidential debate, which drew a combined total of 63.2 on various broadcasters and news networks.
The success of fake news shows like This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show is part of the discussion today on TV Talk with CHML’s Scott Thompson. There’s also some yak about the Tories welcome about face on Bill C-10. You can listen in here.
As for the real news shows, CBC’s The National continues to gain, pulling 897,000 viewers at 10, right behind CTV News’ 909,000 tally at 11. The night before, CBC News beat CTV News. That’s news!