Canadians couldn’t get enough of Short Track Speed Skating last night, with three events averaging more than 6 million viewers each, including 7.4 million watching Charles and François Hamelin compete against one another in the Men’s 1000m finals. The audience was the highest yet for any sporting event at the Games, and second only to the broadcast of the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony. Yesterday’s Short Track Speed Skating audiences account for three of the Top 6 most-watched sporting events at Vancouver 2010. On the Games’ second Saturday, nearly 4 million viewers (3.878M) watched every minute on average over a 24 hour period, producing the highest audience yet for a full day of coverage. After Day 9, 97.2% of the population – or 32.55 million Canadians – have engaged with Vancouver 2010 coverage, according to Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium’s CUME index.
Day 9 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 5.6 million
Additional Day 9 Highlights – Television
– The medal ceremony in which Jon Montgomery was presented with Canada’s fourth gold medal averaged 3.88 million viewers on CTV and RDS, peaking at 4.24 million at 7:14 p.m. PT.
– The audience for the Men’s 1000m finals in Short Track Speed Skating peaked at 8.3 million viewers.
– Saturday was a huge day for TSN, with seven events averaging more than 1.25 million viewers. In Short Track Speed Skating, the Men’s 1000m semifinals (1.73M) and finals (1.99M), along with the Ladies’ 1500m semifinals (1.99M) and finals (1.92M), are the Top 4 events on TSN, Games-to-date, and among the most-watched broadcasts on TSN this broadcast year.
– Rogers Sportsnet had a huge audience for the CAN/GBR match in Men’s Curling with 1.5 million viewers.
– V recorded its largest audience yet and its first million-plus audience since the Games began with 1.049 million viewers for Short Track Speed Skating Ladies’ 1500m finals.
– APTN saw its largest audience yet at the Games with 68,000 viewers for SWE/USA Men’s Curling, four times its primetime average audience for Games coverage.
– JEUX OLYMPIQUES AUX HEURES DE GRANDE ÉCOUTE delivered 633,000 viewers for V/CPAC, RDS and RIS, while JEUX OLYMPIQUES EN JOURNÉE was watched by 691,000 viewers.
Additional Day 9 Highlights – Online
– By the end of Day 9, there had been 100 million page views at CTVOlympics. ca and RDSolympiques.ca.
– Athlete profiles saw almost 900,000 page views yesterday. Top athlete profiles on Day 9 were Cheryl Bernard (Curling), Veronika Bauer (Freestyle Skiing), Jon Montgomery (Skeleton), Patrick Chan (Figure Skating) and Yu-Na Kim (Figure Skating).
– In addition to the main homepages, the top destinations on CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca for Day 9 are the Video Homepage, Hockey Homepage, Medals Homepage, Results & Schedules page and the Viewers’ Guide.
– Photo galleries continue to be very popular destinations on the site. The #1 gallery is Wipeouts with more than 100,000 views yesterday, followed by Latest Photos and the Compulsory Ice Dance gallery.
– Sports proving popular with fans on Day 9 are Hockey, Figure Skating, Skeleton, Curling and Nordic Combined.
Top Five Television Events – Day 9
Total Viewers Event Time (PT) Channels
1. 7.4 million Short Track Speed Skating: Men’s 1000m Finals 20:08 CTV, V/CPAC, TSN, OMNI.2, OMNI AB, OMNI BC
2. 6.4 million Short Track Speed Skating: Men’s 1000m Semifinals 19:30 CTV, V/CPAC, TSN, RDS, OMNI.2, OMNI AB, OMNI BC
3. 6.3 million Short Track Speed Skating: Ladies’ 1500m Finals 19:53 CTV, V/CPAC, TSN, OMNI.2, OMNI AB, OMNI BC
4. 3.5 million Ski Jumping: LH Individual Final Round 12:47 CTV, TSN, RDS
5. 2.9 million Short Track Speed Skating: Ladies’ 1500m Semifinals 19:01 V/CPAC, TSN, OMNI.2, OMNI AB, OMNI BC
Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium is delivering 4,800 total hours of coverage from the 2010 Winter Games. Every second of Olympic Games competition will be available live on one of the Consortium’s platforms – CTV, V (and CPAC), Rogers Sportsnet, TSN, RDS, RIS Info Sports, OMNI, OLN, APTN, ATN, CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca.
