Curling sweeps weekend ratings
While it's a given which sport will draw the greatest number of Canadian eyeballs at the Vancouver Olympics -- that's hockey, if you just arrived from Zimbabwe -- there is equally no doubt about which sports is going to be a close second.
That's curling, which produced awesome ratings for last week's Olympic trials. Sunday's men's final, for example, hit 1.2 million even though the game wasn't exactly a cliff-hanger. TSN calls it a record and even though just about everything is a record under the new ratings system, the audience numbers were impressive.
When curling pre-game shows can attract more than 400,000 viewers, you know you've got something. TSN got an extra benefit from its curling coverage: SportsCentre .
Here are the top-rated weekend sports shows in English Canada, according to BBM Canada overnight ratings: SportsCentre drew 381,000 viewers on the heels of Saturday's women's final.
1. NHL, Caps-Leafs/Canes-Sens/Thrashers-Habs, Saturday, CBC: 1,758,000
2. Curling, Olympic trials men's final, Sunday, TSN: 1,213,000
3. Curling, Olympic trials men's semifinal, Saturday, TSN: 843,000
4. Curling, Olympic trials women's final, Saturday, TSN: 832,000
5. NHL, Wild at Canucks, Saturday, CBC: 818,000
6. NFL, Early games, Sunday, CTV: 802,000
7. Curling, Olympic trials women's semifinal, Friday, TSN: 729,000
8. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game show, Saturday, CBC: 641,000
9. NFL, Late games, Sunday, Citytv: 585,000
10. NFL, Eagles at Giants, Sunday, TSN: 566,000*
11. Curling, Olympic trials men's final pre-game show, Sunday, TSN: 415,000
12. Curling, Olympic trials women's final pre-game show, Saturday, TSN: 406,000
13. NFL, NFL Countdown, Sunday, TSN: 291,000
14. Skiing, Men's Super-G, Saturday, CBC: 188,000
15. NFL, Late games, Sunday, Sportsnet: 169,000
* NBC viewers not calculated
OTHER STUFF: For sale: One Tiger-cam. Overused, but still in good working condition. Warning: Focuses only on Tiger Woods. Call NBC Sports. ... Still operating, though, is CBC's Burke-cam. Does the network honestly think hockey fans are interested in watching Leafs GM Brian Burke's reaction to what's happening on the ice? ``Hey, Martha, come see this? Brian Burke's sitting down!" ... TSN's curling crew deserves credit for not trying to hype Glenn Howard's chances in Sunday's men's final. When Kevin Martin grabbed a big early lead, they all agreed that Howard was in big trouble. ... Shameless plug of the week: Don Cherry shilling for his fight-filled hockey videos during Saturday's intermission orgy of self-promotion.
Hey Chris, love the blog - can you find out why TSN insisted on using TSN2 as a timeshifting device when curling was on? I'm a big fan of Pardon the Interruption, which airs at 5:30, and instead of being able to find it on TSN2 while the almighty curling occupied TSN all of last week during the timeslot usually occupied by PTI, the "deux" featured more curling. What's the point?
Posted by: Chris | 12/15/2009 at 03:59 PM
ITA with Chris' statement. I enjoy watching both PTI and Around The Horn. What's the sense of using TSN2 if they don't take advantage of showing popular daily programing when they have the chance?
Posted by: chris | 12/15/2009 at 09:36 PM
Last week I sent an e-mail to TSN asking why they couldn't show pre-empted shows (ie: PTI last week) on TSN2........I did not hear anything back from them.
They also pre-empt the first half hour of Monday Night Countdown each week and sometimes they pre-empt ESPN Sports Reporters........I don't have a problem with them pre-empting these shows on TSN..........but I have a big problem with them not airing those shows on TSN2
Posted by: Mike S | 12/16/2009 at 12:39 PM
TSN2 is not licensed as a completely separate channel from TSN. It is limited to being a three hour delay of TSN (similar to east and west versions of The Comedy Network on satellite systems) at least 90% of the time, and I think I may have also read that the up to 10% of the time it's used might be limited only to live events that conflict with other live events on TSN.
Posted by: Mullah_Kintyre | 12/16/2009 at 12:51 PM
TSN is only allowed to show 10% new content on the deuce by law. It could be that all the time is taken up by actual sporting events, leaving no time for pre-empted studio shows.
The CRTC is who you should be complaining to.
Posted by: Mike | 12/16/2009 at 02:59 PM
TSN2 is limited to showing a small % of programming that is different from a time-shift of TSN. They generally only use it for live sports events.
Posted by: SportsFan | 12/16/2009 at 04:12 PM
If TSN is unwilling (or not allowed) to show pre-empted shows on TSN2 then they should try to find time on TSN later in the day or overnight to show them
Posted by: Mike S | 12/17/2009 at 12:51 PM
No Raptors or NBA game made the top 15. Probably not even top 25. Ouch.
Posted by: Rick Grace | 12/18/2009 at 11:05 AM
And yet the Raptors are still not going to leave Canada anytime soon.
Get over it.
Posted by: chris | 12/18/2009 at 02:35 PM