Where have all the Canucks' viewers gone?

by WILLIAM HOUSTON
Globe & Mail

January 12, 2008

The NHL's television audiences in Canada this season are a mixed bag of surprises and contractions.

Regionally, only one team, the Ottawa Senators, has increased its audience.

Nationally, the numbers are down or about flat.

The good news for the league is, since the prelockout season of 2003-04, the audiences, for the most part, have grown.

The Vancouver Canucks rank as the biggest surprise.

Despite leading the Northwest Division, Canucks regional audiences are down 20 per cent. Rogers Sportsnet is averaging 242,000 viewers a game compared with 303,000 at this point last season.

Networks pay closer attention to long-term trends than year-to-year measurements, but the Canucks numbers also have declined 29 per cent from the prelockout season of 2003-04.

What's gone wrong?

"You can drive yourself nuts trying to analyze ratings," Sportsnet president Doug Beeforth said. "It's like the stock market. It is the long term that counts."

The Canucks' weak audiences may be an example of a winning record failing to mitigate the tedium of dull hockey. Goalie Roberto Luongo, not the goal scorers, is the team's star.

The Canucks' viewership decline may also explain why the national audience for the Western based Game 2 of the CBC's Hockey Night in Canada is down from last year. Limited interest in the home market will pull down the national number.

Hockey Night's Game 1 audience of 1.181 million is down 10 per cent from last year and 7 per cent from 2003-04.

Game 2 is averaging 686,000, a drop of 8 per cent from last year and a 15 per cent decline from 2003-04.

TSN, on the other hand, is averaging 463,000 viewers for its NHL telecasts, up 3 per cent from last year at this time and a whopping 49 per cent over 2003-04.

To explain Hockey Night's drop-off on Saturday nights, look no further than the decline on the ice of its leading property, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

At this time in 2003-04, the Leafs had the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference. A year ago, they slipped to ninth. This season, they're down to 14th.

The weak Leafs also affect the Hockey Night Game 2 audience. After watching a bad Leafs performance in Game 1, the Eastern audience is less inclined to stay tuned for Game 2.

Another factor that has reduced Hockey Night's Game 2 audience is the increased TV exposure of the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers. In 2003-04, not all Flames and Oilers games were televised. Now they are, on either on CBC, TSN, Sportsnet or pay per view.

"Saturday night is still special," Scott Moore, the head of CBC Sports, said. "But when every game is on TV, Hockey Night isn't the only game in town any more."

Moore says that Hockey Night, because it draws more than twice the average audience of TSN, has a larger number of casual fans watching. And they're more likely to switch channels if the game is boring or their favourite team is losing.

TSN president Phil King attributes his network's increases to the success of teams outside Toronto. A Canadian team has competed in each of the past three Stanley Cup finals. The playoff races are close and competitive. And the paucity of prime-time entertainment programming, caused by the Hollywood writers' strike, has increased TSN's week night hockey viewership.

Other regional audiences:

Flames: Averaging 117,000 viewers, down 3 per cent from last year at this point, up 3 per cent from 2003-04.

Oilers: Averaging 116,000, down 30 per cent from last year, up 22 per cent from 2003-04.

Leafs: Averaging 411,000, down 3 per cent from last year at this time, up 7 per cent from 2003-04.

Ottawa Senators: Averaging 102,000, up 17 per cent from last year, up 38 per cent from 2003-04.

Montreal Canadiens: Averaging 643,000 on Reseau des Sports, down 9 per cent from last season, but up 65 per cent from 2003-04.

You've got to think the ratings drop for Canuck games have everything to do with dull hockey.  I can honestly say if I was not a Canucks fan I would be hard pressed to make a choice of watching a Vancouver game.  Even as a Canucks fan at times it can be just brutal to watch.

Even the Maple Laffs are a better team to watch...they might lose but at least they play a somewhat exciting brand of hockey.

I wonder how people watching Canucks games in bars are measured.  There is a lot audience in bars on free tv or pay per view tv games.

How are radio ratings doing?

That The Leafs have a fan-base at all is testimony to whatever's in the air & water in Trawna.

Let's change the headline:

"Canucks ratings sink due to lame broadcast signal from SportsNet. Fans tuning in record droves to butterflies mating in HD."

Get me the SPac feed in HD.  Get me the PPV games in HD and I'll watch and stop playing World of Warcraft and listening to the game online.

HNIC's ratings are down because they INSIST on showing the Leafs.

Here's the headline from TSN.ca this afternoon:

NHL's top teams collide in Ottawa
The Red Wings look to rebound from a rare loss and extend a six-game road winning streak tonight when they meet the Eastern Conference-leading Senators in a matchup of the league's top teams.


Never mind. They got it right. Tonight.

The low Canuck ratings is also due to the NHL schedule.  People get sick of seeing Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado and Minnesota 8 times a season.  At least I get sick of seeing the same teams.  

I wonder how PPV did for the Rangers-Canucks game, or the NJ-Van game????!!?!??

The average viewer might not notice, but the cameras are really crappy on Canucks TV.  The play-by-play is for radio, not TV.  The whole broadcast seems weak.

I paid for my first pay-per-view a couple of weeks ago and was really disappointed at the quality.  It didn't have the same energy...the Big Brother inserts, although admirable, were boring.  There's just something not "real" about the whole thing.

I'd have been REALLY pissed off if the Canucks had lost!
But I still wouldn't do it again.

Would the ratings go up, would the league be more interesting to follow and would the caliber of the game improve if, instead of 30 teams, the NHL were reduced to 18 or 24 highly skilled and motivated teams playing 60 regular season games in a slightly shorter schedule with fewer games per week? A nine-month hockey season with two or three games offered every night and teams earning a point for a tie even though they lost in overtime, makes for a dull season.

Quoted from Poopeedoop

The play-by-play is for radio, not TV.

What is the difference?  I have yet to hear a play-by-play for TV.  Every broadcaster I know of tells you obvious stuff you can see for yourself.  It's just the names of the players that may be useful.

In the pre-expansion ('67) era Montreal Canadians owned first rights to all junior age players born in Quebec. Imagine what it might be like in the NHL if portions of the country were divvied up provincially, ie:
Vancouver Canucks - - gets first choice on all players born and/or living in British Columbia;
Edmonton OIlers & Calgary Flames - - players from Alberta, Manitoba & Saskatchewan;
Toronto Maple Leafs & Ottawa Senators - - Ontario
Montreal Canadiens - - Quebec
Players from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories might be selected via a lottery draft or selected according to a team's previous season finish.
American franchises: they get all the USA talent.
All teams would then share draft selections from all other continents and Canadian players not previously drafted.
Reduce the league down to 18-24 teams, including franchises in Hamilton and Winnipeg.

Hey, I'm only saying, what if . . . (note: I'm not running for league president).  

Quoted Text

"Canucks ratings sink due to lame broadcast signal from SportsNet. Fans tuning in record droves to butterflies mating in HD."

Get me the SPac feed in HD.  Get me the PPV games in HD and I'll watch and stop playing World of Warcraft and listening to the game online.

I agree, SportsNet 's Vancouver broadcasts have really poor cameras. Local cable could do better. If they slick up the production and make all those new LCD and Plasma screen scream, then they have a chance.

I tried a PPV and was shocked at how awful the picture was. It's there a decent HD mobile in Vancouver?

Quoted from mikedup

What is the difference?  I have yet to hear a play-by-play for TV.  Every broadcaster I know of tells you obvious stuff you can see for yourself.  It's just the names of the players that may be useful.

Sorry, for me there was an obvious difference.  Radio has to articulate every single move...TV does less of that.
I could have closed my eyes and gotten just as much of the experience.  Not worth the $12.50 or whatever it was.

Quoted from Dead Air

Would the ratings go up, would the league be more interesting to follow and would the caliber of the game improve if, instead of 30 teams, the NHL were reduced to 18 or 24 highly skilled and motivated teams playing 60 regular season games in a slightly shorter schedule with fewer games per week?>>snip<<

I say 'yes'. Its not going to happen of course (g-r-e-e-d) but its nice to dream, isn't it?  

Quoted from Poopeedoop

The average viewer might not notice, but the cameras are really crappy on Canucks TV.

To judge by the amount of bitching I hear on the call-in shows, plus the opinions of every 'average viewer' I know, they notice.
Personally, I don't pay for the ppv. I've sampled it and was not impressed, to put it mildly.

Two words...er...letters. HD!!! I wonder when broadcasters are gonna WAKE UP and realize most people now have HD TV's! Big screen TV's have been outselling the smaller ones since 1996 believe it or not!