House is the one thing keeping the House that Izzy built in business. A new episode of the Fox import drew nearly 2.5 million Monday at 8, a nice robust score for the financially troubled Canwest network. Global’s Monday take included a strong return on 24 (1,243,000) and another weak outing at 10 for Heroes (572,000).
While House is good for what ails Global it’s killing the competition. Monday’s post Oscar ratings continue to show a troubling softening among Canadian comedy shows. CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie (560,000) and especially Sophie (205,000, with just 93,000 25-54-year-old viewers according to BBM NMR overnight estimates) are down week to week. Just For Laughs (315,000) is pulling half what Being Erica was averaging on Monday night before it was moved–unsuccessfully, so far–to Wednesdays.
Meanwhile, CBC’s National News dipped dramatically Monday, to just 462,000 viewers. The Hour at 11 was also down sharply, to just 87,000 Strombo fans across Canada.
CBC’s big 2+ winner Monday was, once again, early prime favorite Jeopardy! with 1,048,000 viewers, although just 297,000 of them are in the 25-54-year-old demo. That’s about what CTV comedy import Gary Unmarried pulled demo-wise Monday (281,000) out of a total of 443,000 viewers.
In the post-Oscar entertainment show wars, CTV’s eTalk (519,000) shaded Global’s ET Canada (491,000), although Global, as usual, fared better in the demos as well as the bigger cities. CTV’s big winners Monday night were Two and a Half Men (1,262,000), and a repeat of CSI: Miami (1,154,000). A new episode of Corner Gas slipped under the million mark for the second week in a row, managing just 818,000 “commercial’ viewers (all CTV numbers will be slightly higher on the CTV “Total” audience score).
Look for Gas to leap back up over the million mark for its 100th episode, airing March 2. The plot: the people of Dog River try to give up TV for a week. Have they lost their minds? Just seven new episodes remain until the six-year-old Canadian success story signs off for good.
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