Rick Mercer roared back with 1,295,000 CBC viewers last night, the best start-of-season numbers for the topical comedy series to date.
The seventh season opener, featuring a B.C. bungee jump with Man in Motion Rick Hansen, was well over last season’s average of about a million viewers a week according to BBM Canada overnight estimates. The Rick Mercer Report is CBC’s highest rated entertainment series.
The new Personal People Meter data may have helped boost Mercer’s latest opener over the highs he hit last season, including a visit with Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion. That show drew 1,289,000 viewers.
Next Tuesday at 8/7c, Mercer travels to Nova Scotia to join the crew of the famous Canadian schooner, the Bluenose.
CBC enjoyed a strong night all around, with 774,000 tuning in for the 17th season premiere of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. And Being Erica scored one if its highest ratings ever with its second episode of the season, 793,000 viewers. Even Jeopardy! at 7 was back up over a million, scoring 1,131,000.
Still, CBC finished behind both Global and CTV for the night. At 8, Global’s ever steady NCIS scored 2,338,000 across Canada. Another 1,941,000 Canadians were watching CTV’s Dancing with the Stars simulcast.
CTV’s So You Think You Can Dance Canada stayed solid at 7 with 1,425,000 (all numbers BBM Canada “commercial” tallies). CTV finished the night with Law & Order SVU (1,589,000) and another high-rated National newscast (1,271,000). Hot Global rookies NCIS: Los Angeles (1,837,000) and The Good Wife (1,328,000), along with tonight’s contender Glee, are helping it challenge CTV’s Canadian Top-20 dominance for the first time in a decade.
City stations across Canada were factors in their markets, with Hell’s Kitchen (788,000), The Biggest Loser (735,000) and The Jay Leno Show (521,000) all having strong nights. Even the Blue Jays drew on Sportsnet, with 489,000 catching their fifth win in a row (now that it’s too late).
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8 Comments
You call a million viewers ‘through the roof’ ratings. What you have here is the entire CBC supporter group of about a million idiots who are probably too cheap to buy cable.
The State Comedian, hire by and paid by the tax-payer is not all that funny, but then this is Canada where all the real funny comedians go the USA for a private sector career.
Good thing the Tax Payer is only coughing up a billion a year for this tripe.
@Hello Birdy: You have correctly assessed this article. Kudos for speaking the truth. I’m sick of paying Rick-not funny, not clever, ridiculous accent-Mercer’s salary. Canada’s pathetic version of Jay Leno has to be bought and paid for by the government– how utterly pathetic. REASON #897979789 I left Canada.
Cue the unadulterated Canada loving, America hating comments. Typical smug, Canadian crap. We’re such a self righteous group of people.
You left out negative.
At least Rick is Funny sometimes but This Hour has 22 Minutes ? Your 15 minutes are up … not funny … not relevant….. biased politically
The only thing I see when I think of Rick Mercer is Bob Rae’s naked ass.
Since you can’t watch CBC through one commercial break without being feed their “all left all the time”
crap, I don’t even watch Jeopardy any more. I would rather stick needles in my eyes than support the CBC and the leftist perdify it espouses.
I don’t know. Anytime you attract over a million viewers in a 35 million person country, you are doing pretty well. Especially for a weekly show. I do not very often agree with Mr. Mercer’s political beliefs or his “rants”, but I find him entertaining, intelligent, and enjoy his show.
Canada has a plethora of entertaining and talented comedians. Lets celebrate our talent.
Rick Mercer is a breath of fresh air in theol’ CBC line-up ….22 Minutes….not so funny….keep it coming Rick! Tuesday at 8:00 is always busy at our house! If you can’t laugh at some of the political mess in our country, keep watching HGTV!!
There were 4 first time viewers of Rick Mercer last night, only because of Man in Motion Bungee jump, as one of these viewers is in a w/chair.
Wont watch again unless iffy is going to go naked.