Ratings across Canada Nov. 22-28

CFL on TSN panel Chris Schulz, Dave Randorf, Matt Dunigan and Jock Climie

Has TSN become Canada’s second most-watched network? It comes close overall as the sports channel broke a few tackles to claim the No. 1 show of the week, the 98th Annual Grey Cup. The CFL championship averaged close to 5 million viewers on TSN plus another 1.1 million on RDS to top 6 million viewers in Canada. Here’s a look at how other shows stacked up opposite U.S. Thanksgiving programming the week of Nov. 22 to 28, according to overnight 2+ estimates.

MONDAY
The final performance of Bristol Palin and the rest of the Dancing with the Stars cast won the 2+ tally Monday with 2,278,000 overnight, estimated viewers, a shade ahead of Global’s House at 2,237,000. House, however, won the night in the 25-54 demo.
Global’s Hawaii FIVE-0 caught a wave, hitting 1,770,000, topping Lie to Me (1,436,000). CBC’s Battle of the Blades results show finale drew 1,333,000. That was well ahead of the 979,000 who checked out CTV’s Skating with the Stars import, although, surprisingly, the cheesier ABC skating show beat Blades in 18-to-49 as well as 25-to-54.
Two and a Half Men drew 1,234,000 on /A, which got a hefty 864,000 from Mike & Molly. How I Met Your Mother was the big gainer for City Monday with 690,000, with Rules of Engagement at just under 600,000. The Event, which is headed for a hiatus, slipped under 400,000.
Discovery drove 781,000 to Canada’s Worst Driver. Sportsnet Ontario scored 679,000 with a Toronto/Dallas NHL tilt.
CBC’s Just Four Laughs got close to 100,000 viewers per laugh.

TUESDAY
The finale of Dancing with the Stars was the top-rated non-football show of the week with 2,734,000 viewers. Glee, which had Sue Sylvester marry herself (!), came second on the night with 2.1 million. NCIS: Los Angeles arrested 1.9 million. The Good Wife did 1,271,000.
CBC’s Rick Mercer Report dodged Dancing and rose to 1,232,000 viewers. Jumping to a season high was CBC orphan 22 Minutes, with a robust 925,000. The Tudors bade farewell to Henry with 768,000 loyal subjects. 651,000 weighed in for The Biggest Loser on City.

WEDNESDAY
CBC had the top prime time show of the night, Dragon’s Den, with 1,757,000 viewers. Unfortunately, they also had the least-watched prime time network show of the night, Being Erica, which slid back down to 404,000 viewers.
CTV’s Criminal Minds was right behind Dragon’s Den with 1,737,000 viewers, followed by Human Target (1,627,000).
Global’s Survivor aired one of those filler recap episodes and was down to 1,569,000 viewers on the night. CTV’s The Defenders, which will welcome Jim Belushi’s buddy Dan Aykroyd in a future episode, did 1,141,000 at 10.
Modern Family was embraced by close to a million on City, with Cougar Town‘s Thanksgiving episode carving out close to 800,000. Reruns of NCIS (737,000) and NCIS: LA (591,000) underperformed as expected on Global.

THURSDAY
U.S. Thanksgiving means leftover which took some of the stuffing out of CTV’s usual killer Thursday night imports. Big Bang was down a million viewers to 2,264,000 at 8, followed by a less lofty S#*! My Dad Says (1,792,000). No new Grey’s Anatomy brought a second helping of Big Bang (2.2 Mil.) and on deck /A comedy Mike & Molly (1,467,000) to CTV’s lineup. A repeat of The Mentalist drew over 1.5 million.
Global, equally reliant on imports, could not take advantage. An airing of The Simpsons Movie did 717,000, while The Apprentice came in at just under 700,000.
CBC had solid outings from The Nature of Things (590,000) and their Doc Zone “Playing God with Planet Earth (516,000).
Sportsnet scored 517,000 with a pickup of the U.S. Thanksgiving Cincinnati at Jets NFL tilt. TSN netted 410,000 with some NHL action.

FRIDAY
Reruns took CTV’s imports down a lot but they still won the night. CSI: NY did 1,154,000, with Flashpoint at 9 getting 1,054,000 and Blue Bloods at 10 at 1,085,000 overnight, estimated viewers.
TSN took advantage of all those U.S. Thanksgiving leftovers on the network channels to be a close second to CTV on the night, scoring 1,041,000 at 7:30 with a Leafs-Sabres NHL tilt and another 844,000 at 10 with Sharks at Canucks.
Ron James (just under 600,000) probably lost a few fans to the hockey game on TSN. The fifth estate recorded 531,000 viewers.

SATURDAY
Game One on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, a regional split between Toronto and Ottawa as well as Montreal and Buffalo, drew 1,830,000, with Game Two slipping to 675,000. Saturday Night Live did 353,000.

SUNDAY
TSN took the night and the week in Canada with 4,941,000 Grey Cup fans tuning in to the Alouette victory. A further 2.7 million caught the Grey Cup pre-game show and over 1.5 watched the post-game celebration.
CTV still managed to pull over 2.5 million over to the Amazing Race at 8 p.m. A Sunday movie (Wedding Crashers) pulled under 800,000 as Desperate Housewives took the week off. Undercover Boss did close to 1.1 million.
The Simpsons still managed to draw close to 1.2 million opposite the Grey Cup on Global. Nothing else their cracked 800,000 on the night.
The movie Happy Feet drew under half-a-mil on CBC, where a rerun of Heartland did 387,000.