Versus Nets Large Audience With Outdoor NHL Game In Canada
Heritage Classic Ranks As Net's Fifth-Best, Regular-Season Contest
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/25/2011 12:37:00 PM
The National Hockey League's outdoor game in Canada scored big with viewers in the U.S. and north of its borders.
Versus' Feb. 20 telecast of the Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic in Calgary, Alberta averaged 608,000 watchers, which made it the fourth-most-watched regular-season game in the network's history.
Coverage of the Calgary Flames' 4-0 win over the Montreal Canadians in McMahon Stadium peaked with more than 700,000 viewers in the 7 p.m. (ET) quarter hour. The contest, which Versus also presented in 3D, was the most-watched regular-season game between two Canadian teams on U.S. cable since NHL viewership became available from Nielsen in the 1993-94 campaign, with the audience representing a 95% advance from the network's 311,000 average thus far in the 2010-11 NHL regular-season.
(Calgary-Montreal slipped to fifth place in Versus' regular-season Nielsen pantheon, as the network's Feb. 21 presentation of Washington-Pittsburgh garnered 681,000 viewers on average to claim the third spot. The Dec. 14, 2010 match between the Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers ranks first with 750,000, while the Oct. 7, 2010 clash between the clubs drew 730,000 good for second. Pittsburgh-Detroit on March 22, 2010 now stands fourth with 622,000 watchers.)
North of the border, the CBC broadcast of the NHL Heritage Classic averaged 2.08 million viewers, up 7% over its season average of 1.94 million for early Hockey Night In Canada telecasts. Viewership for this year's NHL Heritage Classic game on CBC peaked at 2.9 million viewers, while French language RDS peaked at 1.6 million viewers.
Back in the States, Versus' presentation of the Heritage Classic capped corporate teammate NBC's "Hockey Day In America," which featured a trio of regional telecasts in the early Sunday window, followed by national coverage of the Penguins and the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago. The early window averaged a 1.2, an 83% gain over the 2009 equivalent (NBC was airing the Winter Olympics last year), while Penguins-Blackhawks, going head-to-head with Fox's coverage of the Daytona 500, averaged 1.9 million viewers, the network's best regular-season contest in five years, outside of its Winter Classic coverage.
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