It's hockey's turn at the top of the sports ratings again

Now that the CFL playoffs are out of the way, hockey has reclaimed its rightful place as the top audience draw in this country.

While the strength of hockey ratings is seldom a surprise, Friday night did provide one. CBC's coverage of one of the Montreal Canadiens' frequent celebrations of their history drew 1.2 million viewers -- more than the game that followed it.

Maybe it was Viggo Mortensen who kept viewers glued to their seats.

The other shocker was that the  ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Jimmy ``The Greek" Snyder pulled in an average of 327,000 viewers Saturday night on TSN. That was 124,000 more than the Raptors game that followed managed to attract.

 Here are the most-watched sports broadcasts on English-language television for the past weekend, according to BBM Canada overnight ratings.

1. NHL, Maple Leafs at Bruins, Saturday, CBC: 1,453,000

2. NHL, Montreal Canadiens centennial ceremony, Friday, CBC: 1,203,000

3. NHL, Bruins at Canadiens, Friday, CBC: 1,101,000

4. NHL, Flames at Sharks, Saturday, CBC: 810,000

5. NFL, Late games, Sunday, Citytv: 633,000

6. NFL, Early games, Sunday, CTV: 615,000

7. NFL, Vikings at Cardinals, Sunday, TSN: 539,000*

8. Curling, Roar of the Rings, Sunday, TSN: 524,000

9. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, CBC: 523,000

10. NFL, Sunday night pre-game, Sunday, TSN: 457,000*

11. Curling, Road of the Rings, Sunday, TSN2: 333,000

12. Documentary, ESPN 30 for 30 (Jimmy the Greek), Saturday, TSN: 327,000

13. NBA, Raptors at Wizards, Friday, TSN: 219,000

14. NFL, Late games, Sunday, Sportsnet: 217,000

15. Speed skating, World Cup, Saturday, CBC: 213,000

16. NBA, Raptors at Bulls, Saturday, TSN: 203,000

* NBC viewers not calculated

CHANGES AT CFRB: Veteran sports announcer Rick Hodge, who joined CFRB last year, is out in what's been described as ``a parting of the ways," which usually means the station decided it wanted to part with somebody. Former Sportsnet/FAN 590 talker Mike Toth is filling in until RB decides what to do. ... Here's another amazing fact about the Grey Cup: It was the most-watched television show in the country last week and that applied in the Toronto-Hamilton region, where it attracted 875,000 viewers. That was almost double the number who watched last Wednesday's Montreal-Toronto hockey game in this area (454,000 of the 1.4 million who tuned into TSN's coverage.)

Comments

[Boristerzic.blogspot.com]

Good to hear about Grey Cup viewer ship in southern Ontario.

Any word on the TV numbers for the thrs night Bills game?

[Mike]

Good showing by 30for30. Missed the Greek one on Saturday and the Ali-Holmes one a few weeks ago but the rest were great. Hopefully see those 2 on a repeat at some point.

I originally thought that TSN was burying the series by putting 3 of them opposite HNIC but looks like I was wrong. Surprisingly it works as counter-programming.

Do you have the numbers for the other 5 docs, Chris? Did they grew in audience as more were shown like they did on ESPN?

[Don M]

I notice that you never give the numbers for RDS . Although RDS is French Language, I know many anglophones who watch RDS for the Canadiens games. I think by omitting the RDS numbers you are not painting a complete picture.