Post a Comment On: I Am A Child Of Television

[Image]Care to guess what the most popular TV series in Canada most weeks is? Survivor? NCIS? American Idol? Big Bang Theory? Dancing With The Stars?
If you said any of those, you’d be wrong. The most popular TV series on Canadian TV most weeks is…The Amazing Race! Week after week and year after year The Amazing Race is among the top five series on Canadian TV and is usually in the top three. This illustrates a point: Canadians are different from Americans and illustrating this difference what is and isn’t popular on TV.

Allan Strachan of Postmedia did a survey of Canadian TV – or rather (as he describes them) the “Canadian mainstream broadcast networks” as the end of the TV season approached, giving shows letter grades based on the night and the ratings. Canadian ratings are based on live viewing an “Average Minute Audience” (AMA) The ratings they deal with are “live” audiences who watch the show as it’s broadcast  rather than Live-plus-seven, which would include PVR usage within a week of the show airing. There also doesn’t seem to be any differentiation based on demographics, at least not in the ratings that are available to the general public.

The most important thing to know about Canadian TV ratings is that anything over a million viewers is considered a hit and anything over two million is a huge hit. Anything over three million is the NHL playoffs – with a Canadian team. When you consider that Canada has a population of 34.5 million (according to the 2011 census) this means that a show that attracts over 3 million viewers is being watched by nearly 1/10th of the country. For a show in the US to have an equivalent audience it would have to draw 30 million viewers. Live.

In his article Strachan points out that ratings for the top shows are down from last year. He states that there are two possible explanations for this; either Canadians are watching less TV, or “as is looking more likely, consumers are watching TV in new ways, ways that don’t lend themselves to the traditional way of  measuring audiences.” These would include streaming video onto MP3 devices, or recording them on PVRs and watching them a day (or more) after they air – “so-called ‘live-plus-seven” ratings. There is a third alternative that he fails to acknowledge, namely that people are watching shows that aren’t available on the “Canadian mainstream broadcast networks,” including shows on specialty channels, on premium channels, and on “on-demand” services. There also doesn’t seem to be any differentiation based on demographics, at least not in the ratings that are available to the general public.

Strachan arranged all of the shows on Canadian primetime by day and then gave them a letter grade – A, B, C+, and D (with D really being an F). What I intend to do is look at the shows on a day by day basis, pointing out Strachan’s A and B shows, and also shows in the C+ and D range where there is a major discrepancy in popularity on one side of the border or the other. It is also worth noting that shows that air on the City system of stations tend to underperform. This is at least partly because the City system has broadcasting stations in five cities – Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver – plus three small affiliates in the interior of British Columbia, although they have recently entered into agreements to buy a station in Montreal and to acquire a cable presence in Saskatchewan.I’ll include notes for particular shows or situations. I’ll also include the Canadian AMA and ratings position where available and the US overall audience and position where available. These will be done with Canadian Ratings for the week ending May 6 (the most recent available to me) and the US ratings for the comparable period. There are thirty shows in the Canadian list from the BBM Canada and twenty-five in the US list form TV By The Numbers.

Monday

Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status Hawaii Five-0 A Global 9th 1,967,000 CBS 14th 10,909,000 Renewed The Voice A CTV 29th 1,076,000 NBC 20th 9,515,000 Renewed Dancing With The Stars A CTV 21st 1,318,000 ABC 3rd 16,200,000 Renewed Two & A Half Men A CTV 12th 1,672,000 CBS 12th 11,321,000 Renewed Mike & Molly B CTV – – CBS 17th 10,162,000 Renewed 2 Broke Girls B City – – CBS 23rd 9,237,000 Renewed House B Global 10th 1,852,000 FOX – – Ending Bones B Global 11th 1,682,000 FOX – – Renewed Castle B CTV 13th 1,604,000 ABC 13th 11,081,000 Renewed
Notes: Two & A Half Men is listed in the Canadian ratings as airing on Tuesday night in the week ending April 29. Hawaii Five-0, Mike & Molly, 2 Broke Girls and Two & A Half Men. For the week ending April 15th, which is the period when Strachan did his research, Hawaii Five-0 finished 8th in Canada with an AMA of 1,821,000.

Tuesday
Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status NCIS A Global – – CBS 1st 17,583,000 Renewed NCIS: LA A Global 4th 2,206,000 CBS 5th 15,212,000 Renewed Glee A Global 16th 1,558,000 FOX – – Renewed Missing A CTV 15th 1,570,000 ABC – – Cancelled Rick Mercer Report A CBC – – NA NA NA NA Unforgettable B CTV 22th 1,308,000 CBS 15th 10,658,000 Cancelled 22 Minutes B CBC – – NA NA NA NA Whitney B CTV – – NBC – – Renewed Hot In Cleveland B CTV – – TVLand NA NA Renewed
Notes: Both The Rick Mercer Report and 22 Minutes are Canadian made political satire shows and don’t air in the United States. Whitney was included in Strachan’s list because he was dealing with the whole year. It had ended its season in March. Hot In Cleveland’s US ratings aren’t included here because it is a cable series. Schedules for the two CBC shows are disrupted by the NHL playoffs. Missing aired in Canada on Tuesdays and on Thursdays in the United States.Finally, Strachan doesn’t include the Dancing With The Stars Results show in his breakdown. For the week ending April 29th the show finished 20th with an AMA of 1,190,000. This puts it three places ahead of the performance show with 11,000 more viewers!

Wednesday
Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status Survivor A Global 5th 2,206,000 CBS 21st 9,428,000 Renewed American Idol A CTV 8th 2,031,000 FOX 2nd 16,664,000 Unknown Dragon’s Den A CBC – – NA NA NA Renewed Criminal Minds A CTV 19th 1,370,000 CBS 11th 11,470,000 Renewed CSI A CTV 6th 2,087,000 CBS 19th 9,749,000 Renewed Republic of Doyle B CBC – – NA NA NA Renewed Bomb Girls B Global – – NA NA NA Renewed Revenge D City – – ABC – – Renewed
Notes: Bomb Girls was a short run dramatic series that has been renewed for a second season. Republic of Doyle is a CBC “dramedy”. Dragon’s Den is the Canadian version of the worldwide series that originated in Japan. It debuted before the American Shark Tank which has the same format (and two of the same investors on their panels – Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec, both Canadians). I included Revenge to illustrate the effect of a show being on the City TV system. It is one of the breakout hits of the 2011-12 season but the show doesn’t have an audience on Canadian TV because it’s on City.

Thursday
Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status Big Bang Theory A CTV 1st 3,232,000 CBS 6th 13,908,000 Renewed Grey’s Anatomy A CTV 3rd 2,266,000 ABC 24th 9,237,000 Renewed The Mentalist B CTV 7th 2,050,000 CBS 9th 12,944,000 Renewed Touch B Global – – FOX – – Renewed Person Of Interest C City – – CBS 8th 13,270,000 Renewed
Notes: Person of Interest is included as further proof of what I call the “City Effect.”

Friday
Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status Blue Bloods A CTV 17th 1,519,000 CBS 16th 10,356,000 Renewed Marketplace B CBC – – NA NA NA Renewed CSI: New York B CTV – – CBS – – Renewed Grimm B CTV 26th 1,094,000 NBC – – Renewed the fifth estate B CBC – – NA NA NA Renewed Undercover Boss B CTV – – CBS – – Renewed The Finder B Global – – FOX – – Cancelled
Notes: Marketplace is a national consumer affairs show that will be going into its 40th season in 2012-13. the fifth estate is a newsmagazine series that will be going into its 38th season. The two shows are currently off the air due to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Saturday
Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status Hockey Night in Canada A CBC 20th 1,358,000 NA NA NA Renewed Celebrity Apprentice D Global – – NBC – – –
Notes: The ratings stated here for Hockey Night In Canada are actually the cumulative ratings for CBC’s second round playoff coverage, which was on six of the seven nights in the ratings period. Celebrity Apprentice airs six days after it airs on NBC. Strachan states that the show struggles to reach 300,000 viewers most weeks. Strachan understands that the delay of almost a week in airing the show contributes to the low ratings, but also states that “the numbers suggest hardly anyone in Canada watches NBC on a Sunday night.”

Sunday
Show Group Canadian Network Rank AMA US Network Rank Overall Viewers Status Amazing Race A CTV 2nd 2,602,000 CBS 22nd 9,404,000 Renewed Once Upon A Time B CTV 14th 1,601,000 ABC – – Renewed Heartland B CBC – – NA NA NA Renewed Desperate House-wives B CTV – – ABC 25th 9,223,000 Ending GCB B CTV 30th 1,046,000 ABC – – Cancelled The Good Wife B Global – – CBS – – Renewed CSI: Miami B CTV – – CBS – – Cancelled
Notes: Heartland is a Canadian drama.

Edited to include up to date information.