Last night’s sixth season finale of the Rick Mercer Report drew 1,095,000 viewers according to BBM NMR overnight estimates, beating even Jeopardy! When all the final numbers are in on the 22 week season, Mercer’s show will have averaged right around the million mark for 2008-2009, a 2% increase over last season’s average of 971,000 viewers. Once again, it is the network’s top-rated entertainment show, behind only Hockey Night in Canada overall.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes had a so-so week with 601,000 viewers. They should have let Geri Hall goon Dalton McGuinty again! Averaged over 22 weeks, it looks to be smack on last year’s average of 694,000.
Tuesday night rookie Wild Roses drew 414,000, with its 12 episode season average at 476,000. That puts the Calgary-based horse opera ahead of only Sophie among CBC’s entertainment shows this season, a precarious place given today’s announcement of cutbacks in jobs and production spending.
OTHER TUESDAY NUMBERS: Normally dominant CTV was less so last night with Fox import American Idol sidelined by a Barack Obama press conference. In Toronto, for example, the Rick Mercer Report won the 8 p.m. hour with 305,000 viewers, beating CTV’s Law & Order: SVU (229,000) and Global’s anemic 90210 (52,000). That’s just six thousand more than City-TV pulled in Toronto for According to Jim! Obama did all right, too, pulling several thousand viewers away on the Buffalo border stations: WIVB (65,000), WGRZ (21,000) and WUTV (16,000).
Nationally, CTV’s The Mentalist led all shows in Canada Tuesday night with 1,647,000 estimated “commercial” viewers, followed by Global’s NCIS at6 1,512,000. CTV’s Law & Order: SVU drew 986,000 at 8, while Criminal Minds followed with 812,000 at 9. Global’s 90210 continues to get Sophie-sized numbers, pulling just 329,000 at 8, with less than half of that in the 25-54-year-old demo. Homegrown Project Runway Canada did 402,000 at 10 p.m. Tuesday night on Global.
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