USA-Canada Becomes Most Watched Sports Program in Canadian History

Usually I put the Canadian Olympic ratings with the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Consortium daily schedule, but this is so big, it can stand alone. We discover that Sunday’s USA-Canada men’s hockey game was a blockbuster for CTV.

CAN/USA Men’s Hockey Is Most-Watched Sports Program in Canadian History with 10.6 Million Viewers
  • – 9.5 million watch on CTV alone, 6% more than Opening Ceremony –
    – CAN/USA Men’s Hockey delivers 59% more viewers than SUPER BOWL XLIV –
    – OLYMPIC PRIME TIME reaches new high with 6.8 million viewers –
    – Sunday’s full day average minute audience exceeds 4 million viewers for first time –
    – 1.4 million live streams of Games coverage yesterday on CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca –

Vancouver, BC (February 22, 2010) – Sunday night’s CAN/USA Men’s Hockey game delivered winning ratings for Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium with an average audience of 10.6 million viewers. With a larger audience than the Salt Lake City 2002 gold medal game featuring the same two teams (10.3 million), Sunday night’s game now becomes the most-watched sports program on record in Canadian television history. Peaking at 13 million viewers, the game was watched in part by nearly two in three Canadians, or 21.5 million viewers (64.3% of the Canadian population). A total of 9.48 million viewers watched on CTV alone, the biggest audience yet for any event at Vancouver 2010, including the Opening Ceremony (8.95 million), while 1.08 million watched on V. The game contributed to the highest daily reach yet, with 28 million Canadians watching some Winter Games coverage Sunday on Consortium platforms. After Day 10, 97.6% of the population – or 32.69 million Canadians – have engaged with Vancouver 2010 coverage, according to Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium’s CUME index.

Day 10 Average Audiences

OLYMPIC MORNING/LE RÉVEIL OLYMPIQUE: 1.2 million
OLYMPIC DAYTIME/JEUX OLYMPIQUES EN JOURNÉE:
4.8 million
OLYMPIC PRIME TIME/JEUX OLYMPIQUES AUX HEURES DE GRANDE ÉCOUTE: 6.8 million

Additional Day 10 Highlights – Television

  • The CAN/USA Men’s Hockey game on CTV alone (9.48 million) delivered more viewers than the Salt Lake City 2002 gold medal game on CBC by 9.5% (8.66 million).
  • OLYMPIC PRIME TIME attracted its largest average audience yet, with nearly 7 million viewers (6.806M) from 6 p.m. – 2 a.m. ET.
  • Sunday’s 24-hour average audience was also the biggest yet, with 4.33 million viewers from 2 a.m. – 2 a.m., the first time the daily average audience has exceeded 4 million viewers.
  • The Ladies’ 1500m Speed Skating final, where Kristina Groves won her second medal of the Games, was watched by 3.58 million viewers, with 1.3 million watching on Rogers Sportsnet alone. More than 9 million were watching when Groves was announced as the silver medallist at 4:32 p.m. PT.
  • The Men’s Curling CAN/SUI match was watched by 1.93 million viewers on TSN.
  • Through Day 10, nearly 1 in 2 Canadians have watched some part of OLYMPIC MORNING. The early morning program has a cumulative reach of 16.4 million viewers.
  • JEUX OLYMPIQUES AUX HEURES DE GRANDE ÉCOUTE delivered 706,000 viewers for V/CPAC, RDS and RIS, while JEUX OLYMPIQUES EN JOURNÉE was watched by 749,000 viewers.

Additional Day 10 Highlights – Online

Top Five Television Events – Day 10

Total Viewers Event Time (PT) Channels
1. 10.6 million Men’s Hockey: CAN/USA 16:45 CTV, V/CPAC, OMNI.1, OMNI.2, OMNI AB, OMNI BC
2. 4.2 million Freestyle Skiing: Men’s Ski Cross 12:15 CTV, Sportsnet, RDS
3. 3.6 million Speed Skating: Ladies’ 1500m Finals 15:01 CTV, Sportsnet, RDS
4. 2.3 million Men’s Hockey: RUS/CZE 12:05 CTV, V/CPAC, TSN
5. 2.2 million Women’s Curling: CAN/USA 9:05 CTV, V/CPAC

Sources
Television: BBM Canada
Online: Omniture unless otherwise indicated
*Conviva

Well, CTV’s strategy apparently paying dividends or people were looking forward to USA-Canada. Either one.

Arrow to top