Canadian weekly ratings April 4th to 10th - Endgame rebounds

Sunday nights are turning into a bench-clearing ratings brawl in Canada. Always a competitive night of television, things are heating up this spring as several specialty networks get into the act with marquee programming.

Case in point: Sunday’s premiere of The Kennedys on History Television drew an overnight, estimated 889,000 viewers. Featuring Greg Kinnear as John F. Kennedy and Katie Holmes as First Lady Jackie, the shot-in-Toronto series was well hyped by History parent Shaw Media, with a front page wraparound of vintage Kennedy headlines showcased in weekend editions of the Toronto Star.

Sunday is also home to recent specialty start-ups The Borgias and Wipeout Canada, which both dipped in their second weeks. There was also the final round of The Masters (pulling over 1.5 million on Global) plus a curling final on TSN. It’s a wonder regular network shows like The Amazing Race (2,436,000) and Celebrity Apprentice (1,225,000) still draw as well as they do.

It doesn’t get any easier next Wednesday when Game of Thrones premieres on HBO Canada.

Here’s a look at the prime-time ratings races across the nation the week of April 4 to 10 according to overnight, 2+ estimates culled from network releases:



MONDAY

CTV dominated the night thanks to another two-hour Dancing With the Stars (2,634,000) opposite another rerun of House (1,055,000) as well as Jennifer Beals' new cop series The Chicago Code (938,000). CBC spelled T-H-I-R-D with Spelling Night in Canada (473,000) at 8 followed by the Halifax Comedy Festival (303,000) at 9 and Just For Laughs Gags at 9:30 (385,000).

At 10 p.m., it was no contest as CTV’s Castle (1,946,000) defended easily against a rerun of Hawaii FIVE-0 on Global (850,000) and CBC’s The National, which got no lift from a sleepy second election week (566,000).

Week 4 brought some good news for the folks behind Endgame. The shot-in-Vancouver chess drama went up for the first time to 179,000 viewers on Showcase (rising from 106,000 the previous week)



TUESDAY

Global took the 8 o’clock win with a strong simulcast of NCIS (2,141,000). In 2+ tallys at least, the eight-year-old CBS crime drama is doing better in this time slot than Glee (which comes chirping back this Tuesday night). CTV got 1.2 million for an episode of No Ordinary Family. CBC waited out the Stanley Cup playoffs with reruns of Mercer (546,000) and 22 Minutes (334,000). With an election heating up, a new spring 22 Minutes special would have put CBC back in this race.

Everything tilted CTV’s way starting at 9 with the Dancing With the Stars results hour (2,068,000). NCIS: Los Angeles arrested 1,439,000 at Global. CBC’s Winnipeg Comedy Fest found 304,000. Are these regional comedy fests all laughed out?

At 10 p.m., CTV’s Law & Order: SVU (1,450,000) outgunned Global’s The Good Wife (1,118,000). The National counted 532,000 election-weary viewers.



WEDNESDAY

The night began as a toss up between 2+ winner American Idol on CTV (2,543,000) and demo champ Survivor: Redemption Island on Global (2,434,000). The ageless Mark Burnett game opera sizzles as long as Boston Rob remains in charge. A repeat of Dragons’ Den on CBC still fetched over 1.1 million.

The season finale of Republic of Doyle, featuring Paul Gross and a pub full of cliffhangers, rang up 1,033,000 CBC viewers. A repeat of Glee opposite on Global sang to just 395,000.

CTV took the 9:30 slot with the premiere of the new Christian Slater comedy Breaking In (1,262,000). Respectable, but a 50 per cent drop from the large Idol lead-in.

At 10, CTV`s Criminal Minds (1,482,000) beat Global`s hospital import Off the Map (1,115,000) with The National getting a Doyle bounce to 746,000.



THURSDAY

CTV all the way, starting with CSI Miami jammed into the inappropriate 7 p.m. slot, where 1,021,000 found it. That was opposite a rare Thursday night hockey game on CBC, viewed by an overnight, estimated 653,000. The two Entertainment Tonight half hours on Global bounced above and below the half million mark.

Canada`s No. 1 show, The Big Bang Theory, exploded for another 3,219,000 viewers Thursday, relocating the American Idol results show back over to A. CTV’s ever shifting schedule continued with Hot in Cleveland (1,880,000), a rare simulcast of CBS’s C.S.I. (2,223,000) and The Mentalist (2,463,000). Grey’s Anatomy, Canada’s No. 2 show with that musical episode the week before, doesn’t return again until April 28. Sheesh!

Global held at 8 with Wipeout (747,000), got a big bounce at 9 with Bones (1,319,000) and dropped down to third at 10 with buried comedies The Office (310,000) and Outsourced (374,000).



FRIDAY

Listener to this: The Listener nearly cracked the million mark its second week at Friday with 996,000 viewers. That led CTV to another Friday night sweep, with crime imports CSI: New York (1,883,000) and Blue Bloods (1,664,000) winning easily. Reruns of Marketplace (543,000), Mercer (412,000), and fifth estate (378,000) waited out the NHL playoffs. New comedy-drama import Chaos (492,000) led into test patterns at Global.



SATURDAY

With The Leafs out of another playoff hunt, Hockey Night in Canada slumped to 1,619,000 viewers. HNiC Game 2 did 1,0443,000. Helen Miren and Foo Fighters found 398,000 on SNL.



SUNDAY

A wild, jam-packed night. Boosted by a competitive finish, Global’s afternoon coverage of The Masters drove its way to 1,524,000 viewers from 2 to just after 7 p.m. The Men’s World Curling Gold Medal Game drew another 1,379,000 sports fans to TSN.

The biggest show of the night, however, remained The Amazing Race, which crossed the finish line with 2,436,000 viewers. CTV beat all network tallys with Undercover Boss (1,461,000) and CSI Miami (1,711,000).

The Simpsons (1,133,000) and Family Guy (728,000) led Global’s animated comedies, with another two-hour Celebrity Apprentice drawing 1,225,000. Is this show not one hour too long? And how obvious was it that The Donald gave Gary Busy a free pass? CBC did surprisingly well with the 2009 Robin Williams bike comedy Old Dogs (943,000).

The most promoted show of the week opened over at History Television, where 889,000 caught the first two hours of The Kennedys. History says it's their second highest series debut all time. But The Borgias on Bravo! (285,000) and Wipeout Canada on TVTropolis (229,000) both lost half their first week audience. Is there a reason these shows aren’t getting a second window on the main networks?


source: Toronto