March 1, 2010
The Olympic hockey gold medal thriller on Sunday pulled in a record television audience in Canada.
A total of 16.6 million viewers watched Canada’s 3-2 overtime win against the United States, the largest viewership ever for a telecast on Canadian television.
That audience figure represents the combined total of viewers on nine channels, including the main CTV network, where the majority watched the game. Included among the nine channels were the affiliated French Olympic outlets as well as the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and the Rogers Omni ethnic channels.
It’s an impressive audience, but not a surprise given the hockey rivalry between Canada and the United States, and the quality of the game. Canada took a 2-0 lead, but the Americans narrowed it to 2-1 and then scored in the final seconds of regulation time to sent it into overtime where Sidney Crosby got the winner .
CTV reports that 80 per cent of Canadians (26.5 million) watched some part of the game.
CTV also had a big number for the closing ceremonies. A total of 14.3 million watched, making it the second most viewed telecast of CTV’s Vancouver Olympic coverage.
In the United States, NBC earned a 17.6 overnight rating (percentage of potential households tuned in) for the Canada-U.S. game. That’s the largest rating ever for a hockey game televised in the United States.
That rating, SportsBusiness Daily reports, represents a 45 per cent increase over the rating for 2002 Salt Lake final also between Canada and United States.
It also ranks third highest among NFL regular season telecasts in 2009. It’s also higher than the rating for a World Series game dating back to 2004 and every NBA Finals game since 1998.
SportsBusiness Daily suggests the rating will make it difficult for the NHL to discontinue participating in the Winter Olympics.
2 comments:
Living in BC and being in downtown Vancouver when that game ended was the most incredible sporting experience that I have ever taken part in. The excitement there was both breath taking and scary as hell! I feared for my life a little bit. People everywhere screaming and drunk, and you could not escape it. But, I have never been more proud to be Canadian!
It is great to see hockey expanding in the US. Without support there the NHL would disappear. Do I like that we need to rely on the States to have a pro hockey league? No, but it is neccessary for the money and the more viewer and fan interest hockey gets the better of the NHL is.
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