The turnout for the 2025 Federal Election was robust — especially on television.
Both CBC and CTV had a big night Monday. In overnights, based on average minute audience data, CBC’s Main network drew an estimated 518,000 for it’s “Countdown” pre-show from 6:30 p.m. ET to 7 p.m.; 987,000 for two hours of “Polls Close” coverage from 7 to 9; 1,678,000 for the 9-11 “Election Night” block; 1,503,000 who hung in there for the see-saw-y “Election Results” 11-1am portion; and 791,000 for “The Leaders Speak” from 1am to 2 am.
Skipping the early “Countdown” segment, CBC News Network added to the overall public broadcaster overnights total with estimated audiences in the same time brackets of 561,000, 831,000, 707,000; and 358,000.
CBC Research says Election night was their biggest day ever in terms of digital ratings. Canadians spent 3.5 million hours on their digital platforms on April 28. So there, Pierre Poilievre. Their Election special was streamed 5.2 million times. Video views were also up 127 per cent from the 2021 election.
On broadcast, CBC Research says their AMA audience peaked at 10:11 p.m., when Chief Political Correspondent Rosie Barton announced that their Decision Desk projected a Liberal government.
Over at Bell, their “Canada Votes” package brought the following overnight, estimated results: The CTV Total audience was measured at 894,000 from 7p.m. to 9 p.m.; 1,827,000 from 9 to 11; and 1,136,000 from 11 to 2 a.m. Breaking out the CTV News Channel take over the same time periods, the estimated adience there was 200,000, 418,000 and 279,000.
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In the overnights, Global’s election audience was measured in one, long seven-hour block. From 7 p.m. through 2 a.m., they held an AMA audience of 458,000 viewers. Citytv drew some election coverage from 7 to 1 a.m. with an estimated 87,000 viewers. CPAC saw an estimated 10,000 stick with their coverage for seven straight hours.
The competition? Canadians who just couldn’t look turned to Sportsnet where their national feed drew an estimated 407,000 for the Tampa-Florida Stanley Cup playoff game. The late game on the same service — between Colorado and Dallas — drew an overnight, estimated 281,000.
2 Comments
Thanks for these detailed numbers! It’s great to have this information publicly available, especially now that Numeris no longer posts reports on their website.
I suspect Global probably did like CBC and CTV, peaking from 9 to 11, with the other hours lowering the average, but still finishing in third place in all time slots. CityTV is really abysmal though.
Do you have any numbers for some of the niche offerings, like CHCH, APTN or News Forum?
You are welcome Chipster. The only one of the three you mentioned that I had access to is APTN. Their “Decision 2025” election coverage ran from 9pm ET to midnight and was viewed by an overnight, estimated AMA of one thousand viewers. All the estimated are rounded off, so that means it could have been 754 viewers, or 1,354 viewers. Either way, low. An episode of Corner Gas that same night at 7:30 pm drew an estimated 10,000, but other shows, such as Moosemeat & Marmalade at 7, were estimated at zero.