Blue Jays still making waves on TV

Hey, maybe Rogers Sportsnet is on to something here, what with its decisions to claim all the Toronto Blue Jays telecasts and then launch a new channel to carry many of them.

The Jays are out of it as far as any meaningful baseball goes. They can beat Baltimore -- hey, who can't? -- and they should hang around the .500 mark this season. But post-season play isn't even a dream.

On top of that, attendance is awful -- Montreal Expos awful at times.

But despite all that, the team is still scoring on television. The Jays managed to break the Canadian Football League's hold on the top ratings for the weekend  by drawing more than 500,000 viewers for the second game of a doubleheader Sunday evening.

Sunday was a good day for auto racing, too, with TSN recording impressive ratings for its vroom-vroom tripleheader.

Here are the most-watched weekend sports events on English-Canadian television, according to BBM Canada:

1. CFL, Roughriders at Stampeders, Saturday, TSN: 917,000

2. CFL, Lions at Argonauts, Friday, TSN: 858,000

3. CFL, Eskimos at Blue Bombers, Saturday, TSN: 628,000

4. MLB, Blue Jays at Tigers (Game 2), Sunday, Sportsnet: 562,000

5. Auto racing, NASCAR Brickyard 500, Sunday, TSN: 500,000

6. MLB, Blue Jays at Tigers, Saturday, Sportsnet: 475,000

7. Auto racing, IRL Edmonton, Sunday, TSN: 399,000

8. MLB, Blue Jays at Tigers (Game 1), Sunday, Sportsnet: 382,000

9. PGA, Canadian Open final round, Sunday, CBS/Global: 363,000

10. PGA, Canadian Open third round, Saturday, CBS/Global: 295,000

11. Auto racing, F1 German Grand Prix, Sunday, TSN: 275,000

12. CFL, Pre-game show, Friday, TSN: 234,000

13. PGA, Canadian Open second round, TSN: 194,000

13. Athletics, Track and field, Saturday, CBC: 194,000

15. Soccer, Toronto FC at Dallas, Saturday, CBC: 153,000

Expect more changes at Hockey Night In Canada

One shoe  dropped at Hockey Night In Canada on Friday. Expect the other to drop before the first pucks fly in the fall.

Sherali Najak is out as executive producer, which is interesting in itself because he had only three seasons in that job. But what's really telling is who replaces him: Trevor Pilling.

Now, Pilling has a pretty impressive resume: CFL, Olympics, World Cup and more. But very little hockey. He has produced NHL games for CBC, but isn't a member of the HNIC mafia. And that seems to be the point.

He has been brought in to give the place a new look.

``Trevor isn't part of the Hockey Night In Canada establishment, so he will bring a fresh approach," said CBC Sports head Scott Moore, the man who made the shuffle. Moore said the change was being considered after next season, but when senior producer Doug Walton left to do Sportsnet's baseball package, the time seemed right.

The timing obviously wasn't right for Najak, who will return to his post as senior producer. He played good soldier on Friday, saying that he would give his all to his new job even if it was the job he had before he became the man at the top.

But changes come regularly in the TV business and it's been apparent for some time that change was needed at HNIC. The show has become too predictable and a too staid.

Najak didn't do a bad job. The on-ice production was superb and, after a few failures, he breathed new life into the Hotstove show, though it still has a long way to go.

While CBC does a great job of presenting what takes place on the ice, its failings are in the other areas. Far too often, talk revolves around what host Ron MacLean and curmudgeon Don Cherry believe is important.

If nothing else, Pilling will have to take control of the show's two biggest stars and get them to present what the viewers are interested in, not what turns their cranks.

David Amber leaves ESPN to return to Canadian TV

It wasn't a trade, but it almost looks like one. 

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is expected to announce today that David Amber is leaving ESPN to join Raptors NBA TV as its main anchor. Amber will replace Adnan Virk, who left the anchor job earlier this year to join -- you guessed it -- ESPN.

MLSE broadcast head Chris Hebb confirmed that Amber will join the channel in October, anchoring pre-game and post-game shows and handling other desk duties with NBA properties. ``This is a good move for David and a good move for us," Hebb said.

Amber said he welcomed the opportunity to work in his hometown ``with a growing broadcast entity."

``I'm looking forward to to being part of the broadcast crew for a team I've followed since its inception," he said.

Amber has been at ESPN since 2002 after leaving TSN, where he worked as an anchor and reporter. Among his gigs was doing sideline reporting at Raptors games. He worked as an anchor there, but recently returned to reporting so he could work out of his Toronto home and be closer to his family.

CFL grabs eyeballs, but so do horses, bulls and calves

Now that we're officially into the summer television doldrums, what with the marquee special events off the calendar, the Canadian Football League has assumed its rightful spot at the top of the sports ratings.

That's not a surprise, but what is surprising is the company the CFL is keeping. While football games took the top two spots on the weekend, third place was held by something other than the usual suspect: rodeo.

Yes, the Calgary Stampede drew an average of 690,000 viewers to CBC on Sunday evening. That's more than baseball, the Toronto Indy and even the British Open. Even if you love the sight of calves being roped, you'd have to admit rodeo outdrawing the British Open isn't exactly everyday business. Pretty impressive numbers, that's for sure.

Also impressive were the Toronto Blue Jays, who despite falling out of the pennant race still managed to attract more than 500,000 viewers on Sunday -- against Baltimore, of all teams. Maybe baseball fans have a sadistic streak in them.

That might apply to rodeo, too, since there no doubt are those who tune in to watch the crashes.

Speaking of crashes, the Toronto Indy drew 186,000 to TSN2. In itself, that's not very good, but since the race was also on ABC, it would be safe to assume that at least an equal amount watched it on the more accessible American channel.

The same cannot be said for Toronto FC, which continues to draw flies despite a successful season. Saturday's game in Philadelphia managed only 132,000 on CBC.

Here are the top weekend sports ratings, according to BBM Canada overnight calculations:

1. CFL, Eskimos at Roughriders, Saturday, TSN: 992,000

2. CFL, Alouettes at Lions, Friday, TSN: 731,000

3. Rodeo, Calgary Stampede, Sunday evening, CBC: 690,000

4. CFL, Blue Bombers at Tiger-Cats, Friday, TSN: 612,000

5. MLB, Blue Jays at Orioles, Saturday, Sportsnet: 561,000

6. Golf, British Open third round, Saturday, TSN: 535,000

7. Golf, British Open final round, Sunday, TSN: 509,000

8. MLB, Blue Jays at Orioles, Sunday, Sportsnet: 436,000

9. Golf, British Open second round, Friday, TSN: 284,000

10. Rodeo, Calgary Stampede, Sunday afternoon, CBC: 304,000

11. MLB, Blue Jays at Orioles, Friday, Sportsnet: 284,000*

12. MLB, Mets at Giants, Sunday, Sportsnet: 220,000

13. Auto racing, Toronto Indy, Sunday, TSN2: 186,000**

14. Auto racing, NASCAR Nationwide, Saturday, TSN: 149,000

15. Soccer, Toronto FC at Philadelphia, Saturday, CBC: 132,000

* Three channels only

** Viewers on ABC not calculated

World Cup final moves into upper echelon

It really wasn't much of a game, unless you love yellow cards and flopping around, but Sunday's World Cup final is now among one of the most-watched events in Canadian television.

CBC drew an average of 5,131,000 viewers for Sunday's game, putting it  among most-watched sports events in the past year. The king, for now and probably all time, was the Olympic men's hockey final (16.6 million.) Four more Olympic events topped the 10 million mark in Vancouver.

In an earlier version of this post, I kind of lumped in all the Olympic stuff as one event, which was admittedly pretty goofy. Must have been the heat.

But the World Cup final is in good company, along with the Super Bowl (6,025,000) and world junior hockey final (5,3 million) following. The World Cup fits in next, just ahead of last November's Grey Cup game (5,087,000.)

Sunday's game doubled the audience of the 2006 final, with the new ratings system as always a big factor.

Here are the top-rated weekend sports shows in English Canada, according to BBM Canada overnight ratings: Overall, CBC averaged 1.265 million for its month-long coverage and probably set some sort of record with more tha 8 million live streams on its website.

1. World Cup, Netherlands vs. Spain, Sunday, CBC: 5,131,000

2. World Cup, Germany vs. Uruguay, Saturday, CBC: 1,894,000

3. CFL, Roughriders at Lions, Saturday, TSN: 1,186,000

4. CFL, Argonauts at Blue Bombers, Friday, TSN: 806,000

5. CFL, Alouettes at Eskimos, Sunday, TSN: 657,000

6. CFL, Stampeders at Tiger-Cats, Saturday, TSN: 454,000

7. MLB, Red Sox at Blue Jays, Sunday, Sportsnet: 449,000

8. MLB. Red Sox at Blue Jays, Saturday, Sportsnet: 361,000

9. Soccer, Soccer Day In Canada, Saturday, CBC: 355,000

10. Rodeo, Calgary Stampede, Saturday, CBC: 351,000

11. MLB, Red Sox at Blue Jays, Friday, Sportsnet: 311,000

12. Auto Racing, F-1 British Grand Prix, Sundady, TSN: 280,000

13. Rodeo, Calgary Stampede, Friday, CBC: 227,000

14. Equestrian, Spruce Meadows Show Jumping, Satuday, CBC: 220,000

15. Soccer, Colorado at Toronto FC, Saturday, CBC: 215,000 

Football -- both kinds -- dominate the sports ratings

There's no doubt that football is ruling the air waves in Canada this summer.

The sport the rest of the world calls football continued to score huge ratings for CBC, which averaged 1.89 million viewers per match in the World Cup quarter-finals. That's about a 400,000 per match boost over the round of 16.

As popular as the quadrennial soccer orgy has been on television, it's also a big hit online. Friday's games averaged more than 150,000 live streams.

The sport North Americans call football also had a great holiday weekend as Canadian Football League openers averaged 880,000 per game.

The big surprise of the weekend, though, had nothing to do with feet. The Queen's Plate, which featured an actual queen in attendance, hit 700,000 viewers for CBC. It's assumed most were watching the horses and not the royalty.

Here are the top-rated sports events on English-Canadian television over the July 1 weekend, according to BBM Canada overnight ratings:

1. World Cup, Argentina vs. Germany, Saturday, CBC: 1,950,000

2. World Cup, Paraguay vs. Spain, Saturday, CBC: 1,938,000

3. World Cup, Uruguay vs. Ghana, Friday, CBC: 1,853,000

4. World Cup, Netherlands vs. Brazil, Friday, CBC: 1,841,000

5. CFL, Alouettes at Roughriders, Thursday, TSN: 1,060,000

6. CFL, Lions at Eskimos, Sunday, TSN: 921,000

7. CFL, Tiger-Cats at Blue Bombers, Friday, TSN: 882,000

8. Horse racing, Queen's Plate, Sunday, CBC: 700,000

9. CFL, Argonauts at Stampeders, Thursday, TSN: 658,000

10. Track and Field, Diamond League, Saturday, CBC: 475,000

11. MLB, Blue Jays at Yankees, Saturday, Sportsnet: 417,000

12. Auto racing, NASCAR Sprint Cup, Saturday, TSN: 405,000

13. Tennis, Wimbledon men's final, Sunday, NBC/Global: 378,000

14. MLB, Blue Jays at Yankees, Saturday, Sportsnet: 341,000

OTHER STUFF: If you're wondering where Buck Martinez has been the past week or so, rest assured he hasn't jumped the Sportsnet ship. He was fulfillling previous commitments in the U.S. When the season started, Martinez was going to miss about eight games. But after Sportsnet bought TSN's 25, there were a few more conflicts. ... Speaking of Sportsnet, former anchor Jody Vance has a new gig in Vancouver. In addition to doing the afternoon drive show on  Vancouver radio station Shore 104.3, she's also filling in on the sports desk at CBC Vancouver.