Hockey Night Premieres to Record Audiences

CBC’s HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA attracted record audiences for its Saturday night debut this weekend. An average audience of 2.251 million viewers tuned in to the first game of the evening featuring Toronto taking on Ottawa and Montreal taking on Pittsburgh, up 34% from the 09/10 Saturday night season premiere of the program. The evening’s second game from Vancouver against L.A., attracted an average of 1.430 million viewers, up 26% from the first Saturday night broadcast last season. Both are the highest Saturday night debut audiences in the program’s history. Hockey Tonight drew an average audience of 569,000.

On Thursday, an average of 1.968 million viewers tuned in to see the Toronto Maple Leafs take on long-time Original Six rivals the Montreal Canadiens while in the nightcap, 1.013 million viewers saw the hometown Oilers defeat the Flames.  The evening’s pre-game show, NHL Face-Off, drew an audience of 601,000.

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. The Corporation is a leader in reaching Canadians on new platforms and delivers a comprehensive range of radio, television, Internet, and satellite-based services. Deeply rooted in the regions, CBC/Radio-Canada is the only domestic broadcaster to offer diverse regional and cultural perspectives in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages.

Hockey Central Draws More Viewers Than Either VERSUS Telecast on Friday

The NHL Premiere games continued to show a loss of interest from the previous year, and this time in direct comparison to last year’s numbers.

VERSUS’ broadcast of the second game of the Minnesota-Carolina series in Helsinki, Finland drew 95,000 viewers in it’s Noon ET timeslot on Friday. While this was up 16% from the game airing at the same time on Thursday, it was still down 5% from the comparable telecast last year (100,000 viewers for Blackhawks/Panthers on 10/2/09). The game scored an 0.1 HH rating, and 50,000 viewers in the Adults 18-49 demographic, and 10,000 Women 18-49 tuned in.

The second game of the day on VERSUS, Columbus-San Jose from Stockholm, Sweden drew 120,000 viewers. This was down from the comparable year-ago telecast by 65% (278,000 for Red Wings/Blues on 10/2/09). The game also drew an 0.1 HH rating, with 64,000 among Adults 18-49 and 15,000 among Women 18-49. Columbus-San Jose grew from it’s Carolina-Minnesota lead-in by 21%.

The curious note is that the brief Hockey Central that aired in between Carolina-Minnesota scored 125,000 viewers, more than either game. 52,000 Adults 18-49 watched the broadcast, with 23,000 among Women 18-49. It’s only 40,000 viewers short of a Hockey Central that aired at 6:30 PM ET Thursday broadcast that aired before the Penguins-Flyers game.

(Source: Son of the Bronx)

Your Announcers and Open Thread For Avalanche-Red Wings

Colorado vs. Detroit, 7:00 PM ET, VERSUS (HD)
Play by Play: John Forslund
Color: Eddie Olczyk
Reporter: Billy Jaffe

VERSUS Debuts Sweet New Ads in Multiple NHL Cities

VERSUS has begun a “Hockey Lives On” themed campaign, and as a part of it has been appealing to local fans in various hockey markets. The goal is clearly, from my perspective, to let people in different cities (the campaign is currently running in Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Chicago and Minneapolis) know that VERSUS is where they can catch their local team on a national level, and then get them hooked on watching the network on a more full time basis. It’s very cool, eye-catching stuff.

More photos from VERSUS’ campaign are after the jump.

Puck Daddy Hits the Radio

TORONTO, October 12th, 2010 – Score Media Inc. (TSX: SCR) today announces that Greg Wyshynski, a.k.a “Puck Daddy”, has officially joined its line-up of broadcast talent. Greg Wyshynski, the editor of Puck Daddy, Yahoo! Sports’ infamous and humorous hockey blog, today becomes a member of theScore with a live show on theScore Satellite Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio channel 98. Puck Daddy Radio will be hosted by Greg Wyshynski along with theScore’s Rob Pizzo, and will air Monday to Friday from 1-2 p.m. ET. Each episode will be rebroadcast at 5 p.m. ET daily and will be streamed on both theScore.com and on Yahoo.com’s Puck Daddy blog. Since 2008, Puck Daddy has blended in-depth analysis of the NHL with a humorous look at hockey culture. It is considered the leading hockey blog in North America for its innovation and influence. Award-winning editor, Greg Wyshynski, has written for many leading publications including Deadspin, AOL FanHouse, the Hockey News, The Fourth Period Magazine and SportsFan Magazine. He also spent 9 years as an editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia, a chain of 16 weekly publications. Wyshynski frequently appears as a guest on radio stations around North America and through his many years as a hockey authority, he has developed an enormous following of devoted fans. His weekly play-off show and various other appearances on theScore during the 2009-2010 NHL season got rave reviews and left fans wanting more. “After the success of last season’s Puck Daddy play-off show, we discovered that fans wanted more and that a weekly show was simply not enough so we made the decision to create a dedicated, daily show that will give both Puck Daddy and his fans an even louder voice in the hockey world,” says Mike Gentile, Program Director, theScore Satellite Radio. With Wyshynski’s wit and in-depth hockey knowledge, Puck Daddy Radio on SIRIUS channel 98 will be the go-to destination for hockey fans across North America. “My goal is to take the insight and entertainment from Puck Daddy and bring it to theScore Satellite Radio. It’ll be exciting, informative and unpredictable,” says Greg Wyshynski, Host, Puck Daddy Radio. “I think theScore is a perfect partner in bringing the nonsense we do on the blog to an unsuspecting public and I look forward to interacting with the Puck Daddy audience on a more personal level as scary as that could get.”