CFL dominates weekend TV ratings

It's long been said that the Canadian Football League season doesn't really start until Labour Day in both intensity and fan interest. If that's the case, the CFL is in for a heck of a fall.

Its two games dominated the weekend ratings once again, with Saturday's Saskatchewan-Edmonton game topping 1 million viewers. The Calgary-B.C. game was next with 771,000 viewers.

What's impressive about those numbers is that both games involved the league's worst teams, with both B.C. and Edmonton entering them with 1-6 records. 

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

1. CFL, Roughriders at Eskimos, Saturday, TSN: 1,050,000

2. CFL, Stampeders at Lions, Friday, TSN: 771,000

3. MLB, Tigers at Blue Jays, Sunday, Sportsnet, 501,000

4. MLB, Tigers at Blue Jays, Saturday, Sportsnet: 448,000

5. Auto racing, NASCAR NAPA 200, Sunday, TSN: 378,000

6. LPGA, Canadian Women's Open final round, Sunday, CBC: 252,000

7. Auto racing, F1 Belgian Grand Prix, Sunday, TSN: 239,000

8. PGA, The Barclays third round, Saturday, TSN: 157,000*

9. MLB, Diamondbacks at Giants, Sunday, Sportsnet: 153,000

11. LPGA, Canadian Women's Open third round, Saturday, CBC: 124,000

12. Track and field, Diamond League, Saturday, CBC: 106,000

13. PGA, The Barclays final round, Sunday, TSN: 101.000*

14. MLS, Salt Lake at Toronto FC, Saturday, Sportsnet: 57,000**

* CBS viewers not calculated

** Two channels only

OTHER STUFF: For the ninth straight year, all 82 Toronto Raptors games will be on TV, which should keep hoops fans happy. But there's a catch: 23 of them are on Rogers Sportsnet One. But don't expect the kind of revolt that broke out when the TSN2-Rogers battle kept viewers in the dark. That time, because Rogers is the dominant cable company in the Raptors home territory, a goodly number of Raptor fans were shut out. This time around, they'll be able to get the channel. Whether they'll be willing to pay is another matter. ... Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius channel 98) has changed its name to theScore Satellite Radio (misuse of lower case their decision not mine.) It's all part of associating itself more with The Score and its numerous properties. There will be some new programming, too, including Tim and Sid: Uncut, The Basketball Jones and more Cabral Richards. Program director Mike Gentile says the station is going to de-emphasize its ``no-holds barred" approach to expletives. ``We're going to let the callers say what they want, but our hosts won't be using strong language," he says. ``We want that freedom, but we don't want it to define us."  ... Bill Hayes has replaced Greg Brady as host of The Bill Watters Show on Toronto 640. ... CBC sports reporter Tom Harrington is moving over to the news side to become co-host of Marketplace. 

Comments

[Rick Grace]

Rogers Sportsnet 1?
I'm not paying for a channel that show sports I don't watch on free TV!

[Ferd Buckles]

I wonder where all the NFL games are? Were the ratings all below the MLS's 57,000 and didn't make the ranking?

[peter brown-spotsinunderwear]

I wonder where all the NFL games are? Were the ratings all below the MLS's 57,000 and didn't make the ranking?
Posted by: Terd Buckles
The nfl games probably drew 1.5- 2 million viewer's if you count the people who watched on nbc in sports bars with their friends in toronto like me.

[Doug]

Yeah sure Peter, then the CFL games probably drew 2.5 to 3 Million if you count American viewers who get TSN and there is million of American houses that get TSN

[Mike]

You have to watch the NFL in bars, as the NFL needs that artificial environment to create hype, because the games can be so boring that when you watch them at home in your lazyboy, you can fall asleep real fast

[CanadianSportsFan]

There weren't any NFL games on Canadian TV last weekend. TSN had a game Thursday night, but the games on Friday and Saturday were on on CBS and the one on Sunday was only on Fox.

[Rick Grace]

I have an idea.

Why not change Sportnset into the
Blue Jays/Raptors/TFC/baseball/basketball/MLS channel just for Torontonians?

Then anybody in Toronto who wants to watch those teams can pay 5 bucks extra a month.

We in the rest of Canada shouldn't be forced to pay for a channel that mainly shows teams from Toronto that we have no interest in.

[good idea]

that's a good idea

[Ferd Buckles]

All your 1.5 million friends in the bar watching NBC are included in the Canadian ratings with the new people meters used by Nielsen's. The NFL ratings are usually in the 150,000 to 500,000 range in Canada, including the American channels...far below CFL's ratings on TSN.

[Mike]

"All your 1.5 million friends in the bar watching NBC are included in the Canadian ratings with the new people meters used by Nielsen's"
No, they are not. And Nielsen is the American equivalent. In Canada, TV ratings are provided by BBM.

[Brett S]

Moderators don't want to put mine or other's comments on I guess, all I will say is that the pattern is that after the Leafs, the Riders have the biggest fanbase of any sports team in English Canada

[SF]

Mike
Yes they are. PPMs are worn wherever you go and an inaudible signal is automatically picked up from the program. Beyond that, if you go to the bar to hang out with your friends and you aren’t paying attention to the game the PPM will still count you as a viewer, because it registers the fact that the game is being played on a TV in the bar and it can’t tell whether you’re actually watching it.

[Mike]

SF, the PPMs do pick it up if you are in a bar AND watching a Canadian channel. If they are in a bar and watching NBC, it is not reflected in the numbers posted here.

[CC]

Exactly, Mike. US channels are not picked up. 500k watch a game on TSN, then those watching on US channels are not counted. Simple rule of thumb is double, but many think more watch the US feed to get away from the mundane and repetitive Canadian commercial lineup.

[Fred]

If your watching US feeds in Canada, you still get Canadian commercials, only in some Bars do they get real US feeds, and there is no way that double the number of people are watching US feeds, since you will be lucky to find 50 bars in the GTA that get the era US feeds

[JGH]

Fred, that is not true. You only get the Canadian commercials when a Canadian over the air broadcaster (Ctv) is picking up the exact game. When it's a channel like TSN or Sportsnet, the US channel is untouched and unmeasured. Check out NBC on Sunday night .. You get US commercials.

[K.R.B.]

The Sunday night NFL games are certainly seen all over Canada on NBC. I believe Bell TV (with its ownership connection to CTVglobemedia) is the only satellite or cable company that voluntarily replaces NBC with TSN or TSN2. Otherwise the NFL games on TSN, TSN2, and Sportsnet should not be substituted over U.S. stations, nor should ANY NFL games for Canadians with Shaw Direct satellite or cable outside the reach of a CTV or Citytv station's signal.

And certainly not all of the Sunday afternoon NFL games on Fox and CBS are simultaneously substituted with a Canadian station on cable. For example if there are games on both CBS and Fox at 1 p.m. E.T., your local CTV station (or Citytv at 4 p.m.) can only be substituted over one of them. And several times last year the Toronto CTV station chose to carry a non-simsub game rather than the Buffalo Bills game that was available unsubstituted on southern Ontario cable systems.

Many Canadians, particularly in the "401 corridor" from Windsor to Montreal that includes Toronto and a relatively big percentage of the Canada's population, can and do watch U.S. broadcasts directly. The American stations can be received with an antenna if there is a clear line of sight in the direction of Buffalo, Rochester, Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, Syracuse, Watertown NY, or Burlington VT. Many people, even those who have cable or satellite, simply switch to their TV's antenna input to watch the freely available, and not compressed as on cable, high definition over-the-air stations -- CBS, Fox, and NBC (as well as CBC, or the other Canadian over-the-air stations on the very rare occasions when they have their own worthwhile non simulcasted programming).

Only the Monday ESPN and NFL Network games would require the use of U.S. satellite services like DirecTV that are not-quite-legal to be seen directly in Canada, although more than a few people have them anyway.

..

[Peter Brown]

Quick primer: CRTC requires substitution of Canadian signal over the U.S. channel (on cable or satelite) only if the Canadian carrier is an over-the-air channel. This rule does not apply to cable-only channels such as TSN, Sportsnet, and the Score. So Sunday night football is shown on TSN *AND* NBC with separate signals, and BBM has no methodology for measuring the Canadian NBC audience. Nor do they care, since they are selling data to Canadian advertisers about how many people are watching Canadian ads. Further, K R B's discussion of Sunday afternoons above only underlines the difficulty in measuring Canadian NFL viewership. There are so many games on Sunday afternoon, there is no hope of being able to find one game that draws a massive viewership. Heck, I toggle through every game on NFL Sunday Ticket, so even if I was a BBM data provider, I'd be giving them tiny slices of viewing up to 14 different games over the course of an afternoon.

Oh, by the way, can you guys (and whoever approves comments) please wake up and try to discern the difference between cogent arguments by Peter Brown and sarcastic yucks by my "spotsinunderwear" doppelganger? Didn't realize that 8-year-olds were so interested in sports media blogs.