You have to hand it to the Fox promotions department. Finding a way to tie in the gore and guck of Fringe with the holiday season is a cow-razy idea, but here you go:
By the way, have you seen how those 40-year-old Christmas specials are kicking ass on CBC? Last night’s broadcast of Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas–first broadcast in 1966–drew 1,256,000 viewers on CBC, with more than half (681,000) in the 25-54-year-old demo. Frosty The Snowman, almost as old, also pulled over a million. Both boosted The Border to its third-highest rating of the season, a solid 717,000 viewers (all figures BBM NMR overnight estimates).
CBC even scored a rare Monday night win. The public broadcaster beat both CTV and Global head-to-head from 8-10 p.m. CTV still had the top rated show of the night, CSI: Miami at 10 (1,703,000), but good ol’ Grinch/Frosty easily beat Big Bang Theory (779,000), Law & Order: CI (599,000), Prison Break (778,000) and Global’s final Heroes episode of 2008 (894,000).
And, oh yeah, Jeopardy? What is 1,187,000 viewers, Alex.
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Oh Brioux, you and your crazy theories. You know full well that the reason why everybody tuned last night to THE BORDER was because I wrote it.
Fess up!
John Noble is just the best!
and what about Corrie Street in all of this holiday ratings extravaganza ?!
Corrie Street Monday: a steady 726,000. One of CBC’s best buys ever.
That’s great – and I’m not saying you were one of these, Bill — I don’t remember. But are any of the legion of those who pooh-poohed that Jeopardy buy going to stone up and admit that it did exactly what CBC wanted it to? And maybe that’s why ratings on the channel are up overall this fall?
I mean, we’re so quick to bash. How about eating crow? Not so much with the fast there, methinks.
Honestly, Denis, I think the jury is still out. Jeopardy has done at CBC exactly what it did at CTV and at Global–pull a solid million a night. Yet a closer look at the 18-49 breakout shows a whopping 75-80% of that audience is over 50. That disadvantage is also being passed on to shows like The Border, which also could draw better 18-49, as could Air Farce and other CBC 8 o’clock shows.
So while CTV gave away the big room with Jeopardy, if you look at how many 18-49s are watching Access Hollywood at 7:30, it is neck and neck with Trebek.
The other thing is CBC has kind of wasted Wheel of Fortune–another show that skews old, but is a consistant winner–by not pairing it with Jeopardy as it is in most markets. Since both King World shows are sold together, you have to look at the cost of both of them and then draw conclusions about how they have impacted CBC’s schedule and bottom line.
I think a million at 7:30 is great no matter what, that it gets the network off to a head start, and if the audiece it delivers is older, it is better than no audience at all. Does Global wish they could sell more ads for Viagra and Cialis? That would be yes, Alex.
That’s great about Corrie Street. I’m not geriatric or anything but I have been watching it since I was a baby and can’t give up the habit !
I see Showcase has taken EastEnders daily and it’s not that far behind the BBC Canada episodes (which, in turn, are a couple or three years behind the British version – that boggles my mind).