Impressive Grey Cup TV ratings

[Ravi]

http://ctvmedia.ca/tsn/releases/release ... &yyyy=2011

The Lions couldn't have asked for a better marketing opportunity as the majority of Vancouverites tuned into at least some of the game.

[Toppy Vann]

That is impressive stuff and doesn't count all of us who watched on streams these morons try to shut down all the time. Luckily Furby tv got around those dummies so the count might be even higher!!!

I just will never grasp how they want to shut down streaming of their games. It is like singers who tried to shut down you tube rather than embrace it and help it to build their brand.

But these numbers are impressive!!!!

Audience Breakout
• The 99th GREY CUP becomes the fourth most-watched GREY CUP game on record.* The 98th Grey Cup had an audience of 6.1 million viewers on TSN and RDS.

• The audience for the 99th GREY CUP peaked at 5.8 million viewers in the fourth quarter as the BC Lions wrapped up the victory.

• TSN’s 99th GREY CUP average audience of 4.4 million viewers ranks as the fifth highest audience ever recorded for the network.

• In the Vancouver Extended Market the game recorded an impressive 29.3 Rating. More than 1.9 million viewers tuned in for some of the game, representing more than half of the population.

• TSN.ca’s live online coverage of the 99th GREY CUP recorded an impressive 118,000 live streams. An increase of 65% compared to last year (source: Omniture).

• TSN.ca had more than 8.5 million page views with 925,000 unique visitors on GREY CUP SUNDAY – a more than 50% increase compared to last year’s totals. The site’s live GREY CUP blog demonstrated the CFL’s world-wide appeal, attracting more than 55,000 users from all over the world (source: Omniture).

• TSN’s support programming also had impressive audiences with the GREY CUP SUNDAY PRE-GAME SHOW attracting 2.5 million viewers and the GREY CUP POST-GAME SHOW averaging an audience of 2.1 million viewers.

• The thrilling 2011 VANIER CUP on Friday attracted an average audience of 660,000 viewers. Overall, close to 3 million Canadians tuned in to watch some or all of McMaster’s double OT victory over Laval.

[Sir Purrcival]

You know, you might think that with such good ratings, that the CFL could sell better commercials during the Grey Cup. Those Wendy's commercials are *poop*. In the Superbowl, the commercials themselves are an event of their own.

[David]

Wow. A 65 share in the Vancouver market?? That is massive. That means two-thirds of people who were watching TV Sunday night in this market tuned into the Grey Cup game. On a specialty cable channel no less. I can only imagine what the CFL's ratings would be like if they broadcast on CTV (like they do for Super Bowl).

And to Ravi's point, yes, this was a wonderful 4 hour commerical for the football club. They would be foolish not to start a season ticket push NOW, especially being so close to Christmas.


DH

[joe kapp22]

TSN had 116,000 online viewers, I wonder how many ESPN3 had for the game?

[bc49]

Yep those are impressive numbers considering Quebec or Ontario (62% of the population) were not represented in the game.
The Vancouver share is especially impressive and goes to show interest in the team runs very deep despite not being as cool or sexy as the nhl team next door.
Also the 118k live streams is kick ass and represents not only an emerging viewing option but also the ability of Bell/TSN to handle such traffic. (I watched the game on the live stream and it was flawless)
And that avg audience of 660k for the Vanier! SOLID!

[sj-roc]

The Vancouver share was large because we won, and the way we won. We scored first, never relinquished the lead, and it was a fairly wide gap much of the time (7 or more for 44:28 of the allotted 60 mins, and 10 or more for over 33 mins). If that game had unfolded anywhere near like our last one in Hamilton it would have flatlined here.

[Buonosjanet69]

Or if that game was like the Sask - Montreal one, ratings would have been through the retractable roof!

Montreal - BC game with game down to the wire would be highest ratings, a field goal like the Calgary game, me thinks.

Maybe even higher ratings than a BC - Tor game under the same scenario.

Montreal-BC game with Celine singing the anthem and Drake or Bieber doing half time show

[pennw]

Great to see such numbers. Listening to News 1130 on Friday they had a little story about whether or not anyone was going to be watching the Grey Cup or if anyone cared so they went to the streets to find out. So they find 4 people who were not going to watch and put them on the air as though this was a newsworthy story ,trying to make it sound like no one cared . Real good 1130 , shows how out of touch your station is .

[David]

Great to see such numbers. Listening to News 1130 on Friday they had a little story about whether or not anyone was going to be watching the Grey Cup or if anyone cared so they went to the streets to find out. So they find 4 people who were not going to watch and put them on the air as though this was a newsworthy story ,trying to make it sound like no one cared . Real good 1130 , shows how out of touch your station is .

Let's not forget this is a Rogers owned station. We all know what the Rogers executives back in Toronto think of the CFL. Also, on a local level, Rogers is a major Canucks sponsor (do you notice how much hockey talk there is on that station now?). My favourite sound bite of the 4 was the last one, some wacked broad said, "No, I am going to be watching NFL....real football".....oooh, the suits at Head Office in Toronto must have loved that one! (the local ratings show she was clearly in the minority). Still, News1130 had plenty of coverage of the game and Grey Cup week. Team coverage afterward led their newscasts.


DH

[cromartie]

Considering the two biggest television draws (Montreal and Saskatchewan) weren't in the game and there was no "Eastern" team, I think the numbers were great, personally. The local numbers were fantastic to boot. No complaints about that at all and, despite Rogers, it speaks well, I think, to the health of the game and the league overall.

[LFITQ]

That's funny about News 1130 - especially considering they had a booth at the Telus Family Zone in front of BC Place for the big event and were giving out mugs, radios and other little trinkets.

[obs]

> I can only imagine what the CFL's ratings would be like if they broadcast on CTV

It''s funny how the CFL is supposed to be such a Canadian institution, but you can only watch it if you're subscribe to cable (or similar).

I'm all for the playoff games being broadcast on CTV. They can do all pregame/postgame on TSN, but the game itself should be available on public airwaves.

[joe kapp22]

Great to see such numbers. Listening to News 1130 on Friday they had a little story about whether or not anyone was going to be watching the Grey Cup or if anyone cared so they went to the streets to find out. So they find 4 people who were not going to watch and put them on the air as though this was a newsworthy story ,trying to make it sound like no one cared . Real good 1130 , shows how out of touch your station is .

Let's not forget this is a Rogers owned station. We all know what the Rogers executives back in Toronto think of the CFL. Also, on a local level, Rogers is a major Canucks sponsor (do you notice how much hockey talk there is on that station now?). My favourite sound bite of the 4 was the last one, some wacked broad said, "No, I am going to be watching NFL....real football".....oooh, the suits at Head Office in Toronto must have loved that one! (the local ratings show she was clearly in the minority). Still, News1130 had plenty of coverage of the game and Grey Cup week. Team coverage afterward led their newscasts.


DH

Now there is some pure bilge, I have NFL games available weekly, including such "stars" as Cam Newton, and I'd gladly trade a good CFL game for an average NFL gm.

Imho, CFL football, late in the yr, is superior to non playoff NFL games, as in not even close as the chances for big swings in games is far greater in the CFL.

We saw it in the Cup 4th qtr, we had smashed the Blue bombers for 3.75 qtrs, let up late in the 4th and they nearly came back to win it, in the NFL you can mail in the final two minutes. Imho people say that sort of crap simply because they bought into marketing.

[notahomer]

Great to see such numbers. Listening to News 1130 on Friday they had a little story about whether or not anyone was going to be watching the Grey Cup or if anyone cared so they went to the streets to find out. So they find 4 people who were not going to watch and put them on the air as though this was a newsworthy story ,trying to make it sound like no one cared . Real good 1130 , shows how out of touch your station is .

This is the modus operandi of the Media. Find the people who are affected negatively and/or don't care. They get coverage. For example, our canadian dollar loses value. Terrible right? The media interviews importers and others negatively affected by our weak Canadian dollar, conveniently forgetting or omitting the exporters and others (like the tourism industry) that BENEFIT from our weak dollar. When our dollar became worth more than the US greenback, all of a sudden the Media was asking the exporters (and the tourism industry) how bad things were due to our strong dollar. Human beings pay attention to what could go wrong so the Media is only doing what makes good business sense. Too bad it may drive away some business for the CFL but I doubt it......