Last Weeks Ratings Including Labour Day

CFL Talk
1

I believe these are excellent ratings again.

Ratings through the roof -- with an explanation
Somebody asked me the other day if I was well, or possibly working part-time. Checking first to see if it wasn't one of the boss's operatives, I inquired as to why he would ask such a question. ``You're only blogging once a week," he replied.

It's true, but there's an explanation. I cover the Argos (insert sympathy here) 6 months of the year and don't have the time to either blog or do the research that goes into it. Heck, with this team I barely have time to prune the roses.

So there's the explanation. Speaking of explanations (quite the segue, eh?), one is needed for last weekend's TV ratings. At first glance, it looks like a whole bunch more people started watching sports on TV.

Take TSN's Labour Day football doubleheader. The prime-time Calgary-Edmonton game drew an average of 979,000 viewers while the afternoon Argos-Ticats game attracted 844,000. That's 43 per cent more viewers than TSN drew last year for much more competitive games. (Those 2008 numbers were 20 per cent than the year before on CBC, by the way.)

The explanation? BBM Canada has started using people meters, which it claims gives a much more accurate picture of who's watching what. It handed out 9,000 pager-like devices to carefully selected people (not me) and they record what you're watching -- even if you're watching in a bar or at a neighbour's home.

I'm not sure how the science works, or whether it's even accurate, but BBM and the networks like it and believe in it. One of the interesting things that come out in the testing was that sports ratings increased more than other types of TV shows. That makes sense since people tend not to flock to bars to watch So You Think You Can Dance.

If they do, it's probably not a bar we'd want to go ot.

So, here are the overnight ratings for English-language sports programming supplied by BBM Canada. Keep in mind that while the numbers are higher, they are relatively in the same order they usually are, meaning the CFL is at the top of the summer ratings.

  1. Football, Blue Bombers at Roughriders, Sunday, TSN: 982,000

  2. Football, Eskimos at Stampeders, Monday, TSN: 979,000

  3. Football, Argonauts at Tiger-Cats, Monday, TSN: 844,000

  4. Football, Alouettes at Lions, Friday, TSN: 750,000

  5. Baseball, Yankees at Blue Jays, Sunday, Sportsnet: 622,000

  6. Auto racing, NASCAR Labor Day Classic, Sunday, TSN: 608,000

  7. Baseball, Yankees at Blue Jays, Friday, Sportsnet: 586,000

  8. Baseball, Yankees at Blue Jays, Saturday, Sportsnet: 325,000

  9. Auto racing, NASCAR Nationwide V12, Saturday, TSN: 321,000

  10. Tennis, U.S. Open, Monday, TSN: 274,000*

  11. Tennis, U.S. Open, Sunday, TSN: 239,000

  12. Baseball, Padres at Dodgers, Sunday, Sportsnet: 220,000

  13. Baseball, Red Sox at White Sox, Saturday, Sportsnet: 207,000*

  14. Golf, Canadian Women's Open, Sunday, CBC: 168,000

  • Viewers for U.S. channels not calculated

Posted at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This article is from Chris Zelkovich's Toronto Star blog

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Hopefully one less argument for the “NFL or nothing” types whose TV numbers (shockingly) aren’t as big as they think they are.:roll: That type of football “fan” (note the quotation marks) has always asserted that, because they tend to congregate to watch NFL games, their true numbers are not counted.

Guess we’re about to find out soon enough.

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So, here are the overnight ratings for English-language sports programming supplied by BBM Canada. Keep in mind that while the numbers are higher, they are relatively in the same order they usually are, meaning the CFL is at the top of the summer ratings.

  1. Football, Blue Bombers at Roughriders, Sunday, TSN: 982,000

  2. Football, Eskimos at Stampeders, Monday, TSN: 979,000

  3. Football, Argonauts at Tiger-Cats, Monday, TSN: 844,000

  4. Football, Alouettes at Lions, Friday, TSN: 750,000

  5. Baseball, Yankees at Blue Jays, Sunday, Sportsnet: 622,000

  6. Auto racing, NASCAR Labor Day Classic, Sunday, TSN: 608,000

  7. Baseball, Yankees at Blue Jays, Friday, Sportsnet: 586,000

  8. Baseball, Yankees at Blue Jays, Saturday, Sportsnet: 325,000

  9. Auto racing, NASCAR Nationwide V12, Saturday, TSN: 321,000

  10. Tennis, U.S. Open, Monday, TSN: 274,000*

  11. Tennis, U.S. Open, Sunday, TSN: 239,000

  12. Baseball, Padres at Dodgers, Sunday, Sportsnet: 220,000

  13. Baseball, Red Sox at White Sox, Saturday, Sportsnet: 207,000*

  14. Golf, Canadian Women's Open, Sunday, CBC: 168,000

  • Viewers for U.S. channels not calculated

You may have noticed the rating are up across the board for sports this week. The explanation? BBM Canada has started using people meters, which it claims gives a much more accurate picture of who's watching what. It handed out 9,000 pager-like devices to carefully selected people (not me) and they record what you're watching -- even if you're watching in a bar or at a neighbour's home

here is a link to the full blog post it is worth reading if you have a interest in how bbm calculates ratings

http://thestar.blogs.com/sportsmedia/
4

CFL on top......those terrible blue birds along against the apparently most popular sports franchise didnt even make it real close behind the Lions and Als.....

Have been to many ticat games over past 25 years and this past labour day game experience (before-during-and after) was the most enjoyable and fan-friendly yet....

Just imagine if Tom Wright would of negiotated a more reasonable deal with TSN how much more that could of possibly assisted the league in better training their on-field officials for instance...

The CFL continues to grow and thrive!!!

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Totally off the chart numbers, even more than some of us expected as I personally would have thought the LD numbers alone would top out at 750K.
But the Sunday numbers are equally as great.
How about the late Friday night game and not included is the RDS figure around 300,000 and the total is in excess of 1M.
Wow.
Like some of us keep saying over and over again how Tom Wright gave away the rights and at 50% value when in fact the annual rate should have been around $30M.

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ArgoTom.
I was going to post the exact same thing.
Tom Wright got swindled like a Hillbilly in Manhatten.

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berezin, you and I have been keeping this alive for a while now and especially so when these numbers are this unbelievable and the CFL will exceed a new 400,000+ record average per game.
What makes this even more pathetic he also got hoodwinked by not insisting upon having the playoffs and GC played on CTV.
Despite this, I still do not understand the reason why the mother network in now seeing the figures will not make a decision to move the GC as surely it can exceed NFL numbers.
Unless there is a conscious effort to keep the CFL numbers below the No Funners. Conspiracy is at work?

8

ArgoTom.
You and I live in the same area roughly.
And we share the same opinons.
This league is shooting itself in the foot at every turn.
They should be getting close to NHL type money for their games.
Instead they I think get barely more then what CTV is paying for the NFL.
How can that happen? Lets hope Cohon is smarter.

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I think they got fair value. They negotiated on the numbers they had and in comparison to the old contract. It didn’t help that they had no other bidder. The next contract will be a big upgrade.

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The CBC wasn’t given a chance to bid on the contract.

The CBC never had a chance to stay in the game. TSN, which owned the rights to all CFL games in the previous broadcast deal, had a window of negotiating exclusivity. The CFL concluded the new deal -- believed to be worth $75 million over five years, a jump of $30 million over the old contract -- without bringing the CBC to the table.

In the previous CFL broadcast deal, TSN sub-licensed a package to the CBC that included all playoff games and the Grey Cup. But network executives insisted that won’t be happening again.


http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/News/2006/12/21/2913990-sun.html

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That’s wrong.
There were at least two other bidders waiting and ultimately the CBC said they were willing to pay more, but the CFL never came calling.
In “negotiations 101”, you cannot get full value when you are only talking to one party.

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Total CFL viewers for the week: 3,550,000
Total viewers for the rest of the list: 3,570,000

That's pretty impressive.

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Yes it is. Brett did you count the estimated 300,000 from RDS in your total?

14

No, just added up the CFL and non-CFL numbers from the list.

15

nice to see the Riders and Bombers get top #'s for the week! :slight_smile:

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Actually no, if you factor in RDS’s numbers, it was likely Als-Lions on top.

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Which is a little weird, considering the game was a 10:30 EST start and likely blacked out in BC.

Did everyone in Ontario go to bed last Friday leaving their TVs on tuned to TSN?

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http://www.bbm.ca/en/nat08312009.pdf

Tops in sports -- and cracked the list for the top shows on TV.

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"The CBC never had a chance to stay in the game. TSN, which owned the rights to all CFL games in the previous broadcast deal, had a window of negotiating exclusivity. The CFL concluded the new deal -- believed to be worth $75 million over five years, a jump of $30 million over the old contract -- without bringing the CBC to the table. " :o

:o that absolutely boggles the mind how foolish that move was.....like selling your car or house to the very first person who gives you an offer without allowing anyone else to give an offer...STUPID! :x
20

It's worth it. After the CBC's poor performance in the last year of its contract — cancelling a game half way through because they couldn't find the producer's phone number — pretty much counted it out of the bidding. So what other choices were there? The CBC with its couldn't care less attitude, or TSN, which wanted it and has provided first class coverage of every single game. Global? Would that network even be interested?