Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs saw a major falloff in ratings - half a million viewers - with no Canadian team in the final.

Sure, we all understand that both teams in the playoffs are comprised of Canadian players, but somehow the visceral attraction of fandom doesn’t exist when the jerseys don’t belong to a Canadian team. Most of you reading this have probably heard at least one hockey fan friend exclaim that there are no Canadian teams in the playoff in distress.

The good news is that the numbers are significantly better this time around than the last time the playoffs were all-American, back in 2003. Viewership then was 1.29 million, and ratings for the Saturday game were 2.11 million.

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	Hockey Night in Canada	Posted at 9:48 am (28 May 2008)

Their loss, our gain…

The Bureau of Broadcast Measurement’s spring ratings are out - and ratings are up for the Montreal newscast by 28%; 22% of those are new viewers.

This article speculates that some of those viewers may have jumped ship with Frank Cavallaro, an award-winning Weather Specialist who just joined the CBC earlier this year when the CTV news team did not renew his contract. Cavallero was voted the World’s Top Weather Presenter at the International Weather Festival held in Paris in 2002, and has been forecasting since the late 1980’s.

Incidentally, if you’ve always wanted to be a weather forecaster on the CBC and live in Calgary, that very job just got posted on the CBC jobs site this morning.

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	CBC News at Six, CBC Television, Montreal	Posted at 11:56 am (15 May 2008)

CBC Radio One and CBC Radio Two together captured record spring share of 13.3%.

• Radio One now reaches nearly 3.2 million Canadians
• Radio Two reaches 1.1 million listeners (consistent with past spring reach levels)

Radio One gained over 50,000 new listeners versus a year ago and now reaches 3.2 million people while Radio 2 reached 1.1 million listeners overall, which is consistent with past spring reach levels.

CBC Radio’s excellent performance extends to the regions as well with Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria breaking their own records.

• Calgary is now ranked #1 overall with at 9.8 % share up from its 7.3% share captured a year ago. The morning show, which continues to show significant improvement, is also ranked #1 with an impressive 14.6 % share, up four share points from S1 2007.
• Vancouver’s overall ratings jumped two full share points to a 10.7% share and maintained its #2 ranking in that market. The morning show maintained its #1 ranking and also saw a year-to-year share jump from 13.8 to 15.4%. In the noon period the station achieved a 7.8% share…its highest this decade.
• Victoria continues phenomenal growth reaching an 11.7% share overall… up nearly 3 share points from last spring. The morning show ranks #1 with a 17.1 % share… up close to 7 share points from a year ago. In the afternoon drive period, Victoria has nearly doubled its share.

CBC Radio now has 13 of 18 morning shows ranked in the top three in their markets and seven are #1 including the key markets of Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa.

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	CBC Radio 1, CBC Radio 2	Posted at 8:34 am (08 Apr 2008)