As expected, Don Cherry helped boost the Rick Mercer Report back on top as CBC’s highest-rated non-hockey broadcast last week, drawing 1,169,000 viewers last Tuesday. In fact, if you add the other 815,000 who checked out Mercer’s Friday rebroadcast, the episode drew close to 2 million Canadians.
A strong second at CBC was the surprisingly resilient Air Farce: Final Flight, at 899,000 viewers last Friday, proving that the sketch show doesn’t need any Canadian and U.S. election buzz to stay airborne. Why is CBC grounding its second highest rated scripted series at the end of the year again?
Further back Monday to Friday last week at CBC are Dragon’s Den (827,000), This Hour Has 22 Minutes (766,000), Doctor Who (685,000), The Tudors (657,000), The Border (649,000), Little Mosque on the Prairie (528,000), Fifth Estate (512,000), The Nature of Things (395,000), Sophie (310,000) and, saving Sophie from the ignominy of last place for one week only, Thursday’s Doc Zone (246,000).
Canada’s top homegrown production last week was CTV’s So You Think You Can Dance Canada, with 1,395,000 viewers tuning in to Wednesday’s performance show. Corner Gas pumped 1,180,000, SYTYCDC’s results show drew 1,021,000 and Global’s The Guard pulled 432,000.
Canada’s most watched show last week, topping all the C.S.I.‘s, Survivor Gabon, House, Bones and Dancing With The Stars, was Criminal Minds, No. 1 for the week with 2,430,000 viewers. CORRECTION: Global never had this show, as was incorrectly reported here earlier (the show I confused it with was Without A Trace, a solid, million-plus performer for CTV in Canada and a bigger hit for CBS in the States). CTV has always carried Criminal Minds in Canada.
