NHL audiences
With 11 days left in the regular season, the National Hockey League's TV audiences in Canada are down on the CBC, TSN and most of the regional broadcasts.
The exception is Réseau des Sports, the French-language rights holder that airs Montreal Canadiens games. RDS is averaging 688,000 viewers a game, up 25 per cent from last year.
The CBC's first-game audiences on Saturdays are down 1 per cent (1.381 million). Second-game audiences have dropped 20 per cent (748,000), a steep decrease that's partly attributable to a small number of Vancouver Canucks games aired early in the season. The decrease has narrowed since November, when the gap was 40 per cent.
TSN's national telecasts (418,000) are down 12 per cent.
However, comparisons with last year are somewhat anomalous because TSN and CBC enjoyed extraordinary audience spikes in 2005-06 due to interest generated by the NHL's return after a season-long lockout. If this season's audiences are measured against the prelockout 2003-04 season, CBC's audiences for the first game are up 9 per cent and the decrease for the second game shrinks to 2 per cent. For TSN, its national audiences are up 30 per cent from 2003-04.
Regional audiences, with one exception, have dropped:
Toronto Maple Leafs: down 6 per cent on TSN (471,000 average) and 20 per cent on Sportsnet (416,000).
Vancouver Canucks: down 6 per cent on Sportsnet (324,000).
Calgary Flames: down 7 per cent on Sportsnet (127,000).
Ottawa Senators: down 51 per cent on Sportsnet (83,000). The possibility of a Nielsen measurement irregularity is being looked into.
Edmonton Oilers are bucking a trend. Despite a poor season, their audiences on Sportsnet (157,000) are up 19 per cent.
http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070328.wspttruth28/GSStory/GlobeSportsSoccer/home
Although part of a broader article, I think those numbers are very interesting to say the least. RDS is not in every home like the CBC is, nor do they have as large an audience (French speaking) like the rest: TSN, CBC, RSN.