From the Montreal Alouettes’ Grey Cup victory to Team Canada’s heartbreaking loss in the IIHF World Junior Championship, Canadians continue to turn to TSN for the biggest moments in sports. At the halfway mark of the 2010-11 broadcast season, TSN continues to be Canada’s Sports Leader with record-breaking audiences, more of the biggest moments in sports and a continued commitment to give fans expanded coverage across multiple platforms.
Below is snapshot of TSN’s performance midway through the 2010-11 broadcast season.
TSN’s Audiences
Audience data from BBM Canada confirms that Canadians are embracing TSN like never before.
· Halfway through the broadcast season, TSN continues to be the top-ranked specialty channel in Canada – in all key male and female demographics.
· Since September 2010, TSN’s total average minute audience (178,000 viewers 2+) more than doubles that of its closest competitor (87,000 viewers 2+). This is the largest gap recorded in the past seven years.
· Since September 2010, TSN has broadcasted 10 events that have recorded audiences of more than 2 million viewers and 36 events that have recorded audiences of more than one million viewers. By comparison, no other specialty channel has recorded an audience over 2 million viewers this season and there have only been eight events on specialty television that have registered audiences of more than one million viewers.
· The 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship gold medal game registered the highest audience ever recorded on TSN with 6.1 million viewers.
Key Properties Performance
All of TSN’s core broadcast properties delivered substantial audiences in 2010:
· Through 55 games, NHL on TSN is averaging 728,000 viewers, up 2% compared to last season’s record setting audience numbers.
· The 98th Grey Cup registered 6.04 million viewers on TSN and RDS, making it the second most watched Grey Cup ever and the fourth most watched program of the broadcast season just behind Super Bowl XLV, the 83rd Academy Awards and the 2011 IIHF WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP gold medal game.
· Overall, the average audience for TSN’s coverage of the seven 2011 IIHF WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP games featuring Team Canada was a record 3.2 million viewers.
· Overall, an average audience of 510,000 viewers watched more than 60 hours of 2011 Scotties Tournament of Hearts coverage – making it the most watched Scotties tournament ever. The final had an average audience of 1.08 million viewers – the second most watched Scotties final ever.
· With 700,000 viewers, the 2011 DAYTONA 500 on TSN was the most-watched edition of “The Great American Race” ever on Canadian television.
· On a competitive NHL Trade Deadline Day, Canadians made TRADECENTRE ’11, their first choice for trade news, opinion and analysis with an average audience of 268,000 viewers watching the 10-hour live broadcast – the most ever in TSN history and nearly quadrupling the average audience delivered by TSN’s closest competitor.
· SportsCentre’s late edition on TSN has 76% more viewers on average than its closest competitor.
Memorable Moments on TSN and TSN2
· Team Canada gives up a three goal lead and suffers a heartbreaking loss to Russia at the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship
· CFL’s first-ever regular season game in Atlantic Canada
· Rookie sensation Blake Griffin soars over a car to clinch the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest
· SCOTTIES showdown between rival curling queens Jennifer Jones and Cathy Overton-Clapham, with Overton-Clapham taking a dramatic victory over her former teammate
· Twenty-year-old Trevor Bayne becomes the youngest winner in Daytona 500 history, taking the checkered flag in a stunning race that featured a record 74 lead changes among 22 drivers
· At the 17th hole of the final match, Graeme McDowell and Team Europe held onto its narrow lead over a rallying Team USA to win a gripping Ryder Cup
· Cheryl Bernard narrowly missed a chance to make sports history losing a hard fought battle to Kevin Martin in the TSN Curling Skins game
· Chris Bosh blows kisses to the Air Canada Centre crowd but Toronto Raptors fans show no love for its former star in his return as a member of the Miami Heat
· The Seattle Seahawks clinched the NFC West Division crown with a victory over the St. Louis Rams in the season’s final game to become the first team to reach the playoffs with a losing record
· Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel is the last player taken in the first-ever NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft
TSN Radio
TSN, along with CTV Inc. and CHUM Radio, announced that TSN Radio 1050 will launch on April 13. Debuting just as the NHL and NBA playoffs heat up, the highly-anticipated all-sports radio station will be available to sports fans in the Greater Toronto area on AM 1050 and nationally online at TSN.ca and on TSN MOBILE.
The next evolution of the TSN brand, TSN RADIO 1050 will feature best-in-class analysis from TSN’s sports experts and insiders and coverage of live sporting events such as Toronto Argonauts games during the 2011 CFL season. Headlining TSN RADIO 1050’s weekday programming lineup is the station’s marquee morning show, THE MIKE RICHARDS SHOW, with host Mike Richards.
TSN2
· TSN2 continues to increase its distribution and is now available in 5.5 million Canadian homes across all major television service providers in both standard and high definition.
· BBM Canada data confirms that TSN2 is the top-ranked digital sports channel in Canada with an average audience that more than doubles its closest competitor.
TSN HD
· TSN has the highest HD audience of any specialty channel; TSN2 ranks as the third highest channel in HD audiences of all specialty channels (analog and digital channels).
TSN Digital
TSN enjoyed tremendous growth in the digital world with TSN.ca once again proving to be Canada’s online source for sports news and programming.
· TSN.ca remains Canada’s primary source for breaking sports news with more than 988 million total page views to date (September 2010 – present) – a new site record (source: Omniture).
· TSN Video Player complements TSN and TSN2’s live programming by featuring more than 500 events on-demand, including the 2011 IIHF WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP, TRADECENTRE, the 2011 SCOTTIES TOURNAMENT OF HEARTS and the 2011 TIM HORTONS BRIER. To date, TSN.ca has registered more than 60 million video views (September 2010-present), marking a 64% increase compared to the same time period last year.
· TSN MOBILE’s apps for iPhone and BlackBerry continues to be popular among sports fans on-the-go with more than 1.15 million downloads.
· TRADECENTRE app for iPad and iPhone was the favourite on NHL Trade Deadline Day, as the ranking on iTunes showed that the TRADECENTRE app was the #1 Free Sports App in Canada for both iPad and iPhone on February 28. With more than 180,000 downloads, the TRADECENTRE app for iPad was the fourth most popular free iPad app in Canada on NHL Trade Deadline Day, while the TRADECENTRE app for iPhone was the second most popular for the device.
· TSN’s Fan Page on Facebook continues to be one of Canada’s biggest fan pages on the social network with over 212,000 fans – more than double its closest sports competitor. In addition, almost half of the fans are active users of the fan page each month. Launched in 2010, the daily wall posts on TSN’s Fan Page on Facebook average more than 110,000 impressions and climbing.
· TSN’s on-air personalities on Twitter have left their mark on the Twitterverse with over hundreds of thousands of fans following some of the network’s most popular sports experts, including Hockey Insiders Bob McKenzie (113,867 followers) and Darren Dreger (101,512 followers), SPORTSCENTRE host Jay Onrait (36,563 followers), and THAT’S HOCKEY 2NITE host and new recruit Steve Kouleas (10,881 followers).
Rights Deals and Acquisitions
TSN’s strong performance in 2010-11 can be attributed to its comprehensive schedule of sports properties. Recently, TSN secured broadcast agreements or extensions with the following partners:
· EURO 2012 and 2016: TSN reached a broad multimedia rights agreement with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for the upcoming UEFA European Football Championships in 2012 and 2016 (EURO). As the exclusive Canadian broadcasters for both EURO 2012 and EURO 2016, TSN and TSN2 will have live coverage of the top European national teams competing for the prestigious championship across a variety of TSN platforms.
· Major League Soccer: TSN is the official broadcaster of Major League Soccer (MLS) in Canada, having reached a landmark six-year broadcast rights agreement with the league in February. Under terms of the deal, TSN and TSN2 will broadcast 24 MLS regular season matches this season featuring Canadian teams Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC, along with other games featuring non-Canadian teams. TSN will also show the MLS All-STAR GAME, MLS CUP PLAYOFF games, and the MLS CUP. In future seasons, the networks will broadcast at least 30 games featuring both Toronto and Vancouver and the 2012 MLS expansion team, the Montreal Impact. All games will air nationally in High Definition.
· TOUR DE FRANCE: TSN acquired exclusive, multi-year English-language Canadian broadcast rights for the TOUR DE FRANCE – the world’s premiere cycling event. TSN and TSN2’s coverage of the 98th edition of the TOUR DE FRANCE will be in High Definition – marking the first time the race has been broadcast in HD on Canadian television in English.
· NCAA MARCH MADNESSS: TSN is the exclusive Canadian broadcaster of the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, commonly referred to as NCAA MARCH MADNESS. All games on TSN and TSN2 will be broadcast nationally in High Definition.
· Montreal Canadiens Regional Broadcast Package: TSN secured the exclusive regional English-language broadcast rights for Montreal Canadiens games. The multi-year agreement has TSN broadcasting 24 games in the 2010-11 season to viewers in Quebec, Atlantic Canada and parts of Eastern Ontario.
New On-Air Personalities
· Steve Kouleas joined the TSN broadcast team as host of the network’s ultimate hockey highlights show, THAT’S HOCKEY 2NITE, on TSN2.
· Mike Richards, the sports radio veteran, joined TSN RADIO 1050 in January as host of the station’s flagship morning show, THE MIKE RICHARDS SHOW.
· Dan Shulman now works exclusively in Canada for TSN, providing analysis and reports across all platforms for the network’s key properties. Shulman continues working for ESPN as the play-by-play voice of the U.S. network’s marquee MLB game of the week, SUNDAY NIGHT BASEBALL, which airs in Canada on TSN2.
· Luke Wileman and Jason deVos, two of the country’s most knowledgeable soccer experts, join TSN’s MLS broadcast team during its inaugural season as the official broadcaster of MLS in Canada. Both Wileman and deVos boast impressive soccer credentials: Wileman is a 15-year sports and soccer broadcasting veteran having worked for the BBC in Europe and GOLTV in Canada, while deVos is one of the country’s most accomplished professional soccer players with broadcasting experience with the CBC and GOLTV.
Broadcast Audience Source: BBM Canada
