How the Grey Cup audience could skyrocket
November 25, 2009 · 8 Comments
We could be looking at a record television audience for Sunday’s Grey Cup game.
For that to happen, a confluence of important factors will need to come to the aid of TSN and RDS.
But it’s very possible.
For starters, the Montreal Alouettes-Saskatchewan Roughriders game will need to be entertaining and, by definition, close. Overtime is preferable.
TSN drew the second lowest Cup audience ever, 2.439 million, for its inaugural telecast last season largely because of the low level of entertainment squeezed out by the Als and Calgary Stampeders.
It wasn’t a good match-up, either. The absence of both of the country’s big English language market teams, B.C. Lions and Toronto Argonauts, hurt viewership.
As well, TSN, a cable channel, fell about three million households short of the nation-wide distribution offered by the previous Grey Cup network, the broadcaster CBC.
It also helps the TV numbers if the Grey Cup game as a strong halftime show. In 2002, when the Grey Cup TV record was set (4.416 million for the CBC and 1.019 million for RDS, bringing the national total to 5.435 million), Shania Twain did the show. This year’s act, Blue Rodeo, is okay, but it’s no Shania Twain.
Still, TSN and RDS have two important factors going for them. It’s a good match-up, despite the absence of the big market Argos and Lions. The Als, as RDS’s home team, will give the French language network a one million-plus audience. Without the Als, RDS would be looking at 200,000.
For TSN, the Roughriders, as reported in our previous post, are the network’s CFL audience leader.
But here’s the big factor. The new system of measuring audiences, the Portable People Meter, will push up the TSN audience by a huge amount.
In the past, group viewing wasn’t measured. The devise on the TV that recorded the number of people tuned in did not register multiple viewers.
With the new system, the respondents carry around devices, like pagers. If they are at a Grey Cup party on Sunday, their attendance in front of the TV will be measured. If they’re in a bar, and the TV audio is turned up (audio is required to the trigger the devise) they will be counted.
This will make an enormous difference to the audience.
Since the PPMs were introduced in September, TSN’s CFL audiences have jumped 50 per cent and some cases even doubled.
So, on Sunday, let’s assume it’s a good game and TSN by the old measurement system draws three million viewers. That’s a good number, but not great.
However, the new PPM system will spike that audience by at least 33 per cent. If so, suddenly, TSN is looking at a viewership of four million or more instead of three million.
As for RDS, it drew a record 1.062 million for last year’s Grey Cup, using the new PPM measurement. The system was introduced to the Quebec market more than a year ago. So, let’s assume RDS matches last year’s audience.
If TSN gets 4.5 million viewers, you probably will have a total that exceeds the previous high of 5.435 million.
It’s a bit of a long shot, but that’s how a Grey Cup record audience is possible.
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I think you have to compare apples to apples and that would be using the old system. I know that system has flaws and the PPms give you an accurate number of viewers but the old records were with the old system
I don’t think the reported number of people watching sports is even close to what the actual number is, even with PPMs
Weird. I could have sworn that Grey Cup games have drawn upwards of 7 million viewers. When Grey Cup’s pummeled the Super Bowl in ratings the numbers always seemed upwards of 7 million… 5 million seems awful low.
Weren’t PPM’s in use in Quebec before this year? I seem to recall reading somewhere that BBM used them there as part of a pilot project well before rolling them out nationwide.
Also, I remember the Canadiens had huge ratings spikes on RDS a while back, almost matching CBC on some nights. If PPM’s were already being used, then that would explain the increase as it seemed to come out of nowhere.
Mike, you are right. PPMs have been in use in Quebec for some time. I will correct that in my next post.
David, those 7 million viewer figures that you are talking about were under the ratings system that was in place in the early 1980s. Bill Houston would know more about it but I believe that those ratings measured the number of people who tuned into even a minute of the game as opposed to the average number of viewers that are measured today. Under that old system, the Toronto/BC Grey Cup of 1983 registered at over 8 million viewers but measured by the system that was in place up until a few weeks ago, it came in at 4.3 million which was the record until 2002.
It seems that there have been at least three different ways to measure TV ratings over the last 30 years or so.
I understand a high number of viewers is important to the broadcasters, but I was wondering how the viewer ratings affect advertising dollars the boadcasters charge. I have no idea and am just curious how the process works.
For example, when this years Grey Cup advertising was sold, I presume companies paid based on, let’s say for arguement, 5 Million viewers, so the advertising rates were $X.
If actual viewers measure out at 8 Million, are companies who paid $X based on 5 Million viewers charged an additional cost for their advertising? Conversely if actual viewers are only 3 Million, do companies get a rebate?
I would appreciate any comments on how this works. Thanks.
OK, here’s what I don’t get, and I don’t think William means this inference, but when you talk about the big markets of Toronto and Vancouver being out, what gets overlooked is that Montréal is the 2nd biggest city in the nation. Certainly, we all will be watching on RDS and not TSN (personally, Chris Cuthbert’s voice drives me over the edge), and this is a predominately French-speaking city. But, there is this inference that Montréal is a small market. This gets repeated all the time in the Toronto-centric Anglo media in Canada, that Toronto and Vancouver are major markets, and Montréal is secondary, despite being close to twice the size of Vancouver. It was also the argument made for the death of the Expos, that a small market couldn’t support a Major League Baseball team, despite Montréal being the 8th or 9th largest city and urban area in North America. Anyway, just my two cents.