Hey Bills mafia — in case there was ever any doubt, there are a lot of Buffalo football fans in Canada. That heart-stopping finish between the Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, January 23 helped boost CTV’s NFL coverage to the No. 2 spot on the English Canadian Weekly Top-30.
According to data gathering company Numeris, which measured three days worth of NFL coverage that week (Monday, Saturday and Sunday), it all averaged out at 1,660,000 CTV viewers. That average landed in the No. 2 spot on Numeris’ weekly Top-30 most-watched shows in English Canada, behind only an episode of Blue Bloods that Friday night among viewers aged 2+ with 1,745,000 viewers.
Taken as one stand alone game, Bills-Chiefs likely drew over two million (a number I’m trying to confirm; please check back). In terms of demos, the exciting NFL match would have easily topped Blue Bloods.
In the Toronto-Hamilton market, the three-day NFL playoff average was No. 1 for the week, Blue Bloods 2nd, Saturday Night Live (hosted by Will Forte) 3rd and Jeopardy!, boosted by a long winning streak, 4th. A Wednesday night Leafs game on Sportsnet was Toronto-Hamilton’s 5th biggest draw.
Blue Bloods, in fact, was not even the No. 1 show in all of Canada the week of January 17 to 23. In Quebec alone, 1,784,000 was the average SRC audience for four nights of the french language police procedural District 31.
Here is a look at Numeris’ Top-10 that week in English Canada (2+, Live+7 data, average-minute-audience):
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- Blue Bloods (CTV) Fri 1,745,000
- NFL Playoffs (CTV) Mon/Sat/Sun 1,660,000
- CTV Evening News (CTV) MTWTF 1,602,000
- NCIS: Hawai’i (Global) Mon 1,490,000
- The Amazing Race (CTV) Wed 1,487,000
- The Rookie (CTV) Sun 1,422,000
- Magnum PI (CTV) Fri 1,387,000
- NCIS (Global) Mon 1,337,000
- New Amsterdam (Global) Tues 1,274,000
- Saturday Night Live (Global) Sat 1,259,000
Among Canadian scripted originals, Citytv’s Hudson & Rex again stands as top dog fetching 915,000 viewers and barking its way to 22nd place. CBC’s Son of a Critch went up in Week Three, with the Tuesday night sitcom drawing 906,000 viewers at No. 24 overall. Murdoch Mysteries found 859,000 CBC viewers for a 27th place finish. There was no new episode of CTV’s Transplant that week.
All three Chicago hours performed strong for Citytv: Fire (13; 1,053,000), Med (14; 1,047,000) and PD (20; 937,000). City also scroed with two Law & Order franchises: Special Victims Unit (21; 916,000) and Organized Crime (30; 812,000).
Tops in specialty: The Curse of Oak Island in 29th spot with 828,000 History viewers.
