In an ever-fragmenting marketplace, where streaming has surpassed broadcast, it is a rare event when a Canadian series launches to more than a million viewers. Kudos, therefore, to Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, which opened big last Thursday.
The latest, north-of-the-border edition of the hit procedural franchise drew 1,110,000 overnight viewers ages 2+ on Thursday, Feb. 22. Once Live+7 and other digital data are added later on, the episode could top out at close to one-and-a-half million total viewers.
In overnights alone, that put it at over two times more viewers than anything else on a Canadian broadcast network television that night, except for Law & Order SVU, which followed at 9 p.m. on Citytv. That long-running series drew 768,000 overnight viewers.
Top show on CTV that same night, at 10 p.m., was the new series Tracker at 479,000. Most-viewed in overnights on Global at 9 was So Help Me Todd, drawing 422,000. CBC’s most viewed came early with Family Feud Canada pulling 364,000.
Within spitting distance were Indie/NET supper hour offerings Wheel of Fortune (504,000) and Jeopardy! (671,000).
Even the Leafs on TSN, albeit a west coast, later-than-usual 10 p.m. start, skated far behind Law & Order Toronto. The game vs Las Vegas Knights drew an overnight 416,000.
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Episode two of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent premieres this Thursday with “Good Neighbours” (yes, spelled with a Canadian “U”), a ripped-from-the-Canadian-headlines story about a shooting at a condo building. That leads detectives Graff and Bateman (Aden Young, Kathleen Munroe) to a twenty-year-old cold case that they must solve in order to catch the killer. Directed by Peter Stebbings.
2 Comments
That’s an amazing and promising start for Criminal Intent! After these numbers, I can see NBC including the series in their programming. SVU and the repeat of Tracker also look good.
Forgive me for being so forward, but do you know how other Canadian shows are performing? I’m extremely curious of Wild Cards numbers. The CW is extremely happy with the series and its numbers.
Thank you for sharing this info!
CW is very happy with Wild Cards. I’ll look into retrieving a Canadian network number.