TSN’s Grey Cup Audiences One of Smallest Ever
TSN’s Grey Cup coverage drew on the smallest audiences in the history of the championship game.
The Globe reported today that the English audience was down almost a million viewers to 2.4 million. That’s off 27 per cent from the 3.3 million that watched the game on the CBC a year ago.
The one bright spot for TSN was its French sister station pulled in good numbers, as the game was in Montreal and the Alouettes played.
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It’s pretty Simple.. You need cable or sattelite to have TSN and some basic packages don’t include it…
Besides… The ratings system is highly flawed… Might as well guess how many viewers watch in my opinion.
s/the it’s/that its
It’s interesting to know how TSN is doing.
I’m curious, how’s the CBC doing?
I didn’t even know the Grey Cup was going on this past weekend. I sure didn’t see any advertising, CBC would advertise the heck out of it.. CTV.. where were they?
Your (and the Globe’s) headline is misleading. I read the Globe article by William Houston and his story goes on to say the combined english and french language viewers of this year’s Grey Cup were greater than last year’s when CBC had the english language rights.
“The one bright spot for TSN was its French sister station pulled in good numbers”
That’s an interesting thing to say. What are good numbers? Well I read the Globe article, and RDS (TSN’s French sister) brought in an additional 1.22 million viewers. In combination, this surpasses the CBC’s coverage from the year before. I’ve noticed this a lot with the CBC; we tend to ‘fudge’ the numbers to make us look good, when really, the REAL numbers have much more to say. I know the CBC is bitter that TSN is now broadcasting CFL, but really, withholding numbers is not going to bring it back to the CBC.
Nash
Why doesn’t CTV just throw it up as a simulcast on the main network? Pretty baffling, but I’m not surprised by these numbers. Premium sporting events should remain on terrestrial broadcasters.
Hey Nash,
I was going to discuss RDS’s 1.22 million viewers, but as the Globe article noted, that was largely due to the Grey being in Montreal and the Al’s playing. I wouldn’t expect those numbers to be that high next year.
TSN sold out the Grey Cup. Their forecast was way below the CBC from the onset…but you know what? They made more money.
I was looking forward to watching the Grey Cup. When I turned on the TV, I was surprised that the game was not on any of the channels that my rabbit ears pull down – a first as far as I can remember. I am surprised that the CFL would not want the game accessible to all TV viewers in the country.
Hi Paul
I hate to say, but I think you are mistaken on this. French viewers are going to watch the French broadcast when a French team is playing. Also, it just so happened that the Grey Cup was in Montreal this year, therefore turning more French viewers to RDS for the game. If RDS did not broadcast the game, I firmly believe that these 1 million and change viewers would turn to the TSN coverage.
As for all this talk about the Grey Cup not being accessible “over the air” I agree that this should be avoided in the future as a number of people do not have access to TSN. Something as substantial as the Grey Cup should be accessible by any fan anywhere. Maybe the CFL needs to consider something along the lines of the Olympics; have a host broadcaster, but allow other broadcasters to pick it up (for a price of course)
I can understand why CTV didn’t simulcast on the main network; not everyone is a football fan, and some people just CAN’T miss their Degrassi.
You just have to look at the US to see that sports are moving to specialty channels across the board.. And in the next year or two, its not going to matter anyway because there won’t be anymore
over the air broadcast tv.
It is true that the big three and the NHL do have their championships on network television. The World Series on Fox, Stanley Cup finals (late round games) on NBC, the NBA finals (late round games) on ABC and the Superbowl, I believe it was Fox this year, but it’s always on network TV.
What’s being lost here is that TSN has done a better job of covering the CFL than CBC ever has, especially in recent years.
And any Canadian football fan not blinded by their own nostalgia for the old days will agree. CBC was butchering the CFL by the end.
And that anyone who is a CFL fan would probably have TSN already, because every single game this year was on TSN.
And to Nash, you say they don’t simulcast because not everyone is a football fan, but what was on CTV during the Grey Cup? The NFL.
Disgusting, that. And I’d bet it’ll cost CTV more in the long run to do things that way.