Canadians Are Different–A TV Perspective

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.