Stronger, faster, higher — ratings, that is.
CBC/Radio Canada, the official host broadcaster of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, reported Friday that the opening ceremonies was a resounding ratings success.
CBC and partners’ (TSN, Sportsnet and RDS) live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony from 2:00 p.m. to 5:38 p.m. ET was the most-watched program in Canada on Friday with a combined average minute audience of 2.5 million viewers. That was an increase of 221 per cent over the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony (788,000). Viewership peaked at 2:56 p.m. ET when 3.1 million viewers watched Team Canada enter San Siro Stadium in those weird, plaid, sleeping bag uniforms as part of the Parade of Athletes.
It must be pointed out that the 2022 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony returns were, in the words of US veteran numbers cruncher Marc Berman of the Programming Insider, “a complete bust.” The big disadvantage then: a 13-hour timezone shift. The COVID pandemic had also forced the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games to shift forward a year to 2021, leading perhaps to Games fatigued with one substantially timezone-delayed Games coming one year after another.
This year’s Winter Olympic Games from northern Italy has a six hour delay, less than half the timezone shift which plagued Beijing coverage in Canada and the US.
Still, a win is a win. CBC’s live afternoon broadcast of the Opening Ceremony and its primetime encore from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET were the 1st and 2nd most-watched programs in Canada on Friday, February 6 among 2+ and 25-54 audiences. The primetime delay drew a 2+ AMA of 1.6 million viewers across CBC and partners.
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For those streaming the Games, the numbers were also way up. The opening ceremony on CBC’s digital platforms, including CBC Gem, cbc.ca/milanocortina2026 and the CBC News app, showed an increase of 130 per cent at 814,000 video views compared to Beijing in 2020 (354,000).
The Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony coverage was hosted by CBC News Chief Correspondent Adrienne Arsenault and Olympics reporter Devin Heroux.
TV Data Source: Numeris TV Meter, February 6, 2026, CBC Total, TSN+, Sportsnet National, Ind2+/A25-54, AMA, AvgDlyRch, CumeRch, generated by Instar. Note: Data is based on unconfirmed, overnight audiences.
Digital Data Source: Adobe Analytics, CBC Production, February 6, 2026
