Canada’s Olympic Broadcasting Consortium’s Reach Is Truly Amazing

When I see a press release that 99% of a country’s population has seen the Olympics through a network’s various platforms, I’m quite impressed. It’s not just CTV involved, but you’re talking about TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, RDS, V, CTVOlympics.com and cell phones. I mean, 99%? Is that even possible? I guess it is.

99% of Canadians Have Experienced Vancouver 2010 Through Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium

• – 6.9 million see Kevin Martin win gold in Men’s Curling –
  – 5.3 million see Jasey-Jay Anderson receive first Olympic Games medal
  in Snowboard –
  – OLYMPIC MORNING achieves Games high 718,000 viewers on CTV –
  – CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca surpass 200 million page views –

Vancouver, BC (February 28, 2010) – Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium’s CUME index confirms today that 99% of the Canadian population has experienced the 2010 Winter Games through the Consortium’s platforms. The figure represents 33,148,000 Canadians, who have sampled Consortium coverage on television, online, in print or on radio throughout the past 16 days. The reach of the Games has grown by 27%, or 7 million additional Canadians, since the first CUME index of 26 million was issued on Day 1.

Day 16 Average Audiences
OLYMPIC MORNING/LE RÉVEIL OLYMPIQUE 1.3 million
OLYMPIC DAYTIME/JEUX OLYMPIQUES EN JOURNÉE 4.5 million
OLYMPIC PRIME TIME/JEUX OLYMPIQUES AUX HEURES DE GRANDE ÉCOUTE 6 million

Additional Day 16 Highlights – Television

• The Men’s Curling gold medal game was the #1 sporting event of the day with 6.9 million viewers. Now one of the Top 10 sporting events of the Games, the match peaked at 11 million viewers in the final minute. Nearly 17 million viewers watched some part of the event, while an average of 785,000 viewers watched on RDS.
• The PGS medal round in Men’s Snowboard averaged 2.75 million viewers, with 5.3 million viewers watching Canada’s Jasey-Jay Anderson awarded gold.
• OLYMPIC MORNING averaged 1.3 million viewers, 25% above its average daily audience. On CTV, the morning program drew 718,000 viewers, the most yet.
• The bronze medal Men’s Hockey game between Finland and Slovakia averaged 1.3 million viewers on TSN.
• On Rogers Sportsnet, the top event was the Figure Skating exhibition gala, with 1.3 million viewers. An additional 27,000 watched the event in Ukrainian on OMNI.1, while 22,000 watched in Mandarin on OMNI.2., OMNI AB and OMNI BC.
• JEUX OLYMPIQUES AUX HEURES DE GRANDE ÉCOUTE delivered 791,000 viewers for V/CPAC, RDS and RIS Info Sports, while JEUX OLYMPIQUES EN JOURNÉE was watched by 805,000 viewers.

Additional Day 16 Highlights – Online

• On Day 16, CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca reached a Games-to-date total of 200 million page views.
• Day 16 saw more than 1.5 million daily unique visitors to the sites.
• Top on demand videos for Day 16 include Men’s Hockey semifinal CAN/SVK highlights, Jasey Jay Anderson’s gold medal race in Men’s Snowboard PGS, Hamelin’s gold medal in 500m Short Track Speed Skating, Men’s 5000m Short Track Speed Skating Relay gold medal races, and for the 10th day straight, Women’s Hockey CAN/SWE highlights.
• Joannie Rochette remained the most-viewed athlete on Day 16, along with Canadian curling skips, silver medalist Cheryl Bernard and gold medalist Kevin Martin. Gold medal winning snowboarder Jasey-Jay Anderson and figure skating Gold Medalist Yu-Na Kim round out the top spots.
• There have been more than 17,000 interactions on the CTV Olympics Facebook fan page this week.

Top Five Television Events – Day 16

Total Viewers Event Time (PT) Channels
 
1. 6.9 million Men’s Curling: CAN/NOR 15:05 CTV, RDS, APTN
2. 2.8 million Snowboard: Men’s PGS Medal Round 12:15 CTV, V/CPAC, RDS
3. 2.4 million Speed Skating: Men’s Team Pursuit Finals 12:52 CTV, Sportsnet, RDS
4. 2.3 million Men’s Slalom: 1st Run 10:00 CTV, V/CPAC
5. 2 million Men’s Hockey: FIN/SVK 19:05 CTV, V/CPAC, TSN
 
Sources
Television: BBM Canada, with software by BBM Analytics and Nielsen Media Research
Online: Omniture unless otherwise indicated

I’ll have the ratings for Sunday which includes the USA-Canada men’s hockey gold medal game which should have garnered monster ratings sometime on Monday.