CBC, TSN both win and lose in ratings battle

So far, the Stanley Cup playoffs have provided material for one of those good-news, bad-news jokes as far as TSN and CBC are concerned.

The good news for CBC is that it's dominating the sports ratings thanks mainly to the Vancouver Canucks and to a lesser degree the Montreal Canadiens. The bad news, outside of the fact there probably won't be any Montreal Canadiens in the second round, is that ratings are down 7 per cent overall from last year's  first round.

The good news for TSN is that ratings are up 19 per cent as of Monday, thanks mainly to the presence of the Calgary Flames. The reason for this is obvious, of course. TSN's ratings are up mainly because it has a Canadian playoff team for the first time and CBC's are down because instead of having three Canadian teams as it did last year, it has only two now.

There is some bad news for TSN, outside of the fact that it probably won't have a Canadian team in the next round. The fact is that the cable network is again coming up short in efforts to match CBC ratings.

While the Flames are producing some of the highest NHL ratings ever at TSN, they have yet to hit the million mark that's a given when Canadian teams are featured on CBC. In managing to land events like the Grey Cup and Canadian content in the Stanley Cup playoffs, TSN has argued that it can match CBC's ratings.

Thus far, it isn't.

There's bad news for viewers, too. TSN is continuing to go the cheap route and pick up U.S. broadcasts of NHL series, which really isn't what Canadian viewers should be getting. Speaking of cheap, CBC had planned to saved money by showing Games 3 and 4 of the Vancouver-St. Louis series in standard definition before a grocery chain offered to pay the bills for HD.

You have to wonder if the chain got a tax deduction, though it's not clear if the CBC is now a registered charity.

TV BY THE NUMBERS

Here are the latest sports ratings on English-language TV in Canada, as supplied by BBM Nielsen Media Research:

1. Canucks at Blues, Tuesday, CBC: 1,668,000

2. Canucks at Blues, Sunday, CBC: 1,625,000

3. Blues at Canucks, Friday, CBC: 1,323,000

4. Bruins at Canadiens, Monday, CBC: 1,248,000

5. Canadiens at Bruins, Saturday, CBC: 1,174,000

6. Blackhawks at Flames, Monday, TSN: 938,000

7. Flyers at Penguins, Friday, CBC: 784,000

8. Sharks at Ducks, Tuesday, CBC: 738,000

9. Flames at Blackhawks, Saturday, TSN: 727,000

10. Penguins at Flyers, Sunday, CBC: 722,000

Comments

[Scott]

What about the TSN2 ratings? I have never seen any for this "channel."

[Denise]

Good on you calling out TSN for just picking up US feeds. People love to trash the CBC, but they spend the money to put up a Canadian produced programme for Canadians on a Canadian network. TSN has done the "pick up the US feed" for years now. It's nothing but being cheap. On the one hand, they're happy to rake off a huge fee every month off subscribers - think about it folks, tens of millions PER MONTH before they've sold one second of commercial time - and currently the owners of CTV/TSN/Globe whatever it's called are whinging to the CRTC about needing bigger fees. But, at the end of the day, they won't even spend the money to send a crew to do a hockey game. Our national sport for crying out loud, and we're listening to some local American broadcast during the biggest games of the year. You think NBC, CBS or ABC would do the same? For that matter, CBC wouldn't either.

[JP]

Picking up broadcasts from NBC or Versus is one thing. It's them airing local broadcasts that really gets me. How many Red Wings fans across this country do you think wanted to throw their remotes at the TV on Saturday night because TSN aired the horribly biased Columbus announcers? Same thing on Tuesday when they used the Detroit feed. And I'm not a fan of either team.

TSN has a responsibility to be unbiased. Airing local yokel broadcasts from the US isn't doing it.

[Tom Hallick]

"TSN has a responsibility to be unbiased"! That's interesting, because Monday night it sure seemed like Ferraro should've thrown on a Capitals jersey because he was fawning all over 'em.

[Chris]

JP, I couldn't have said it better myself. TSN is pretty cheap this year.

[Clarkie 90210]

Well, I'd rather have the home feeds or Vs than nothing at all. That being said the home feeds are very, very bias. Anyone who heard Chico Resch's soulful ranting when Carolina scored with .2 seconds left to beat New Jersey is a testament to that fact.

For some reason the US based announcers call the game differently than Canadian ones. I can't put my finger on the reasons. Its just different AND that's with Ken Daniels, a Canuck calling Red Wing games!