Those new Portable People Meters had to have played a factor in rejuvenating CTV’s Amazing Race this fall. The eight-year-old CBS reality series drew nearly 3.1 million viewers for Sunday night’s finale according to BBM Canada overnight estimates.
CTV sent out a release Monday suggesting this finale outperformed the 2008 fall finale by 42%! Blond lovebirds Meghan Rickey and Cheyne Whitney (above) crossed the finish line first for those still keeping score. CTV says season 15 averaged a whopping 2.68 million viewers a week. The PPMs have had a similar effect on Global’s Survivor numbers this year, with that series turning back the clock to where ratings raged five years ago. Both shows tend to draw a family audience, with more moms and dads and sons and daughters being counted this season than under the old People Meters where each individual had to log in. The PPMs do all the counting for you, and also include sample viewers who may be watching shows like Survivor or The Amazing Race on sets belonging to friends and neighbours. Survivor‘s two hour season finale airs Dec. 20; both shows will be back with new editions in January.
OTHER SUNDAY NUMBERS: CBC’s pony drama Heartland continues to gallop off with viewers, drawing 1,034,000 and topping all CBC shows on the night. The Penguin movie Happy Feet drew another 969,000 and one of those Eloise movies did 610,000 dressed up as a Disney Sunday Movie offering.
CTV did their usual 1,885,000 with Desperate Housewives and picked off 985,000 at 10 p.m. with a Flashpoint rerun. The interesting number was at 7 p.m.: Cold Case–hardly family viewing at that hour–drew 1,015,000, about four times the number CTV has been getting this season in that timeslot with back-to-back Degrassi.
Global stayed in the hunt Sunday with lower than average scores on its Fox animated comedies like The Simpsons (678,000) and Family Guy (872,000). Brothers & Sisters did 725,000. All repeats? I’m thinking yes.
City found 627,000 for Extreme Makeover Home Edition. A channel drove off with 434,000 Italian Job fans. A bunch of NFL games did OK–Dallas/Giants 633,000 at 4 p.m. on City; another 610 watched a few games CTV carried in different markets Sunday afternoon and 518,000 saw Arizona spoil Farve’s day on TSN in the evening tilt. That was a few thousand less than watched curling on TSN earlier in the day. All of these totals include the U.S. border channel numbers in their totals and all are PPM numbers. All are also less than what TSN was drawing for CFL games as the season in that league wound down.
THE SATURDAY NUMBER: Hockey Night in Canada slumped to its lowest number of the season, with 1,453,000 tuning in to see Kessel look ordinary as the Leafs lost to his old team, Boston. Where did those Leaf fans go? They weren’t watching a rerun of last year’s Anne of Green Gables movie, which did 388,000 at 8 Saturday night on CTV.
FRIDAY NUMBERS: A rare Friday night edition of Hockey Night in Canada maybe stole some of Saturday’s thunder. The pre-game show at 6:30 p.m. (1,203,000) actually outdrew the Montreal Canadiens 100th Anniversary Game (1,101,000). CTV buried a Beatles special on a Friday night and still had 804,000 viewers to twist and shout about. Global had a full slate of shows that flirted with the half million mark.
Prev Post
Next Post
7 Comments
Any word on what Sanctuary & Stargate got on Friday on Space? They both scored season lows in the US after the week break and I was curious how they fared in Canada.
More lies from Bill. The evening game DID NOT include the people watching on NBC because TSN does not get sim sub rights like the broadcast channels do. And the CTV game did include people watching on the American channel but NOT those who were watching a different game (in my aread NE-Miami was also on CBS the same time CTV was showing Atlanta-Philly) and misses anyone watching a game on NFL Sunday Ticket. Also, the 800k+ who were watching 4pm when you add in the Sportsnet audience was higher than any game the CFL got for the final week of the season and 3 of the games that week were below 550k.
It’s sad that Bill can’t just let the numbers speak for themselves without adding lies. Is Mark Cohon paying you for this?
Sanctuary: 176,000. Stargate Universe 304,000. Both close to season averages so no big dip in the Canadian stats, Realm.
And Matt, I’m not on Mark Cohon’s payroll–although contributions would be welcomed–and I watch way more NFL football than CFL. I’m just surprised that the NFL isn’t more dominant on Canadian television given its high profile and media muscle south of the border. It is no lie that curling beat a Vikings game Sunday on TSN. That surprised me.
As for the U.S. border station numbers, they generally do not add that much to the totals. In the Toronto market Sunday night, 41,000 caught the Vikings game on WGRZ. That compares with 837,000 who watched Amazing Race at 8 on CTV or 215,000 who watched a Penguin movie on CBC. Even Hamilton`s CHCH drew 158,000 at 8 for the often seen movie Miss Congeniality. City got 138,000 in the Toronto market with Extreme Makeover Home Edition. 159,000 watched The Simpsons in Toronto on Global at 8:30. So there`s your people watching on NBC in Canada`s largest market.
How did you get the number of people watching on WGRZ or any nbc affiliate for that matter? I’ve always been told by the sports writers (Houston and Zelkovich) that BBM doesn’t even calculate them if they don’t have sim-sub on.
And if they do calculate them, why aren’t those numbers ever added to TSN? It may not be much but it would show the total viewers for once.
You can get overnight, estimated local market U.S. affiliate numbers–measuring WGRZ or WUTV’s impact in Toronto, for example. BBM Canada does not provide a total border station tally as a national number, maybe that’s what Zelcovich was saying.
I guess the WGRZ tally is not folded into TSN because TSN ads are not substituted on WGRZ. Not yet.
Hey Bill .. you missed Thursday numbers in the shuffle … what did The Border do?
Sorry, Yaz, Thursday numbers: The Border 622,000, Doc Zone 848,000 (for “Secret World of Shoplifting”), CTV’s debut of Flash Forward 708,000 at 8 p.m.