An Update on the Fate of Speed in Canada

As I originally reported Sunday, on August 17 when Fox Sports 1 launches in America, Speed will continue to broadcast in Canada. However, advance listings now show that Speed will broadcast motorsports programming from Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 in Canada, instead of the endless repeats that will air on a watered-down version of the channel for American providers who haven’t signed on to carry Fox Sports 1 yet. Usually the CRTC doesn’t allow American-owned services to broadcast a specific channel for Canadians; however, it seems that’s what Speed will do beginning on August 17.

Speed Canada’s updated advance listings for the launch weekend of Fox Sports 1 include these live broadcasts. US broadcaster is in brackets.

Saturday 8/17
8:00am – NASCAR Live: Michigan (FS1)
8:30am – Sprint Cup Practice: Michigan (FS1)
9:30am – Truck Series Qualifying: Michigan (FS1)
11:00am – Sprint Cup Practice: Michigan (FS1)
12:00pm – Truck Series Setup: Michigan (FS1)
12:30pm – Truck Series Racing: Michigan (FS1)
3:00pm – Continental Tire Series: Road America – debut (FS2)
5:00pm – Motorcycle Racing: Miller Motorsports Park (FS2)
9:00pm – MotoGP Qualifying: Indianapolis (presumably FS2)

Sunday 8/18
10:00am – NASCAR Raceday: Michigan (FS1)
11:00am – Moto3 Racing: Indianapolis (FS1)
12:00pm – Moto2 Racing: Indianapolis (FS1)
1:30pm – MotoGP Trackside: Indianapolis (FS1)
2:00pm – MotoGP Racing: Indianapolis (FS1)
7:00pm – NASCAR Victory Lane: Michigan (FS1)

Speed Canada will also air Fox Sports 1’s daily NASCAR show Race Hub weeknights at 6pm ET.

What is most interesting is some Fox Sports 2 (which is replacing Fuel TV on August 17) programming, including some things that aired on Fuel TV in the past, such as Lucas Oil Motocross, will now air on Speed.

So, that’s the latest. Better news than I had to report earlier in the week. I’ve reached out to Fox Sports for more information, and if I get any I’ll post another update. For now, here is where all of FS1’s live programming on August 17 will air in Canada.

8:00am – NASCAR Live: Michigan (Speed)
8:30am – Sprint Cup Practice: Michigan (Speed)
9:30am – Truck Series Qualifying: Michigan (Speed)
11:00am – Sprint Cup Practice: Michigan (Speed)
12:00pm – Truck Series Setup: Michigan (Speed)
12:30pm – Truck Series Racing: Michigan (Speed)
5:00pm – UFC Fight Night Prelims (SN360)
8:00pm – UFC Fight Night: Shogun v. Sonnen (SN360)

Canadian Sports Ratings Update: February 25, 2013

Here are the latest sports ratings, including the Scotties and the first Jays game of the season. All numbers are BBM 2+ AMA.

Tournament of Hearts
ON-QC, Feb 19, TSN: 518, 000
ON-CAN, Feb 22, TSN: 596, 000
ON-MB, Feb 23, TSN: 822, 000
CAN-MB, Feb 24, TSN: 635, 000
BC-CAN, Feb 24, TSN2: 287, 000
ON-MB, Feb 24, TSN: 1.057 million

NHL
PIT-WPG, Feb 15, CBC: 772, 000
PHI-MTL, Feb 16, RDS: 912, 000
OTT-TOR, Feb 16, CBC: 2.248 million
VAN-CHI, Feb 19, SNP: 483, 000
LA-EDM, Feb 19, TSN: 506, 000

NASCAR
Daytona 500, Feb 24, TSN: 691, 000

MLB Spring Training
Jays Central, Feb 23, SN: 206, 000
TOR-DET, Feb 23, SN: 456, 000

NBA
LAL-BOS, Feb 7, TSN: 43, 000
CHI-DEN, Feb 7, TSN: 25, 000
LAC-TOR, Feb 8, TSN: 148, 000
TOR-NY, Feb 13, SN: 224, 000
MIA-OKC, Feb 14, TSN: 127, 000
Rookie Game, Feb 15, TSN: 64, 000
All-Star Game, Feb 17, TSN: 309, 000
MEM-TOR, Feb 20, SN: 164, 000

Thanks to: Jamie Campbell,  Bill Brioux, Whitey Fisk, Bob Weeks

Those baseball numbers are incredible for spring training. 450, 000 would be good for a regular season game against Detroit on a Saturday afternoon. But what’s most amazing, the repeat of 1993 World Series game on Sunday afternoon scored around 150, 000. And we all thought the 200, 000 range was crazy for 20-year old hockey broadcasts on the CBC last fall.

The Scotties ratings are about consistent with 2012, drawing around 50, 000 more viewers this year.B

In Case You Missed It

This feature, posting press release links with a bit of commentary at the end of the week, seemed to work quite well last week. So, I’m thinking about making it a regular feature. Gives you guys a chance to catch up on any news you may have missed this week, and saves me a bunch of time.

TSN has the Scotties Tournament of Hearts beginning this weekend. Coverage begins tomorrow at 2:00pm ET with the opening draw, featuring defending champion Heather Nedohin against New Brunswick’s Andrea Crawford. TSN will have every draw, except draw 5 tomorrow night, which airs on TSN2. There is a slight change to the schedule this year as there is no action on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Instead Friday will feature the final 3 draws, with tiebreakers and page playoffs on Saturday, and the semifinal, 3rd place game and championship final on Sunday. I think this works a lot better for fans and should help attendance. It should help maintain momentum torwards the end of the week as well.

Sportsnet has announced that Vancouver Canucks games will air on Sportsnet Pacific until 2022-23 with a new ten year extension set to kick-in next season. Sportsnet Pacific will show up to sixty games per season, although the average number is probably a bit less than that. Nick Kypreos and Doug MacLean will likely still work for Sportsnet towards the end of the new Canucks deal as both have signed new multiyear deals with the network. Bob McCown joked that Kyper signed a lifetime contract, but in reality he is locked in for around ten years.

In a slightly shorter-term deal Global has re-newed its contract with the PGA Tour through 2018. Global will show 26 tournaments a year (not sure if that includes The Masters, which is a seperate contract). Along with The Masters, Global will continue to show the Players Championship, Canadian Open, two World Golf Championships events, and all four PGA playoff tournaments. Also included are the 2015 and 2017 Presidents Cups. The new contract, as with the current one, does not include all events, which leaves another small package open for another networks to pick up.

The NASCAR season begins this weekend. Coverage of the season’s non-points opener, the Spint Unlimited at Daytona, airs on CTV Two (yes you read that right) and FOX Saturday night at (8pm ET). FOX also has Daytona 500 pole qualifying on Sunday afternoon. TSN and TSN2 will show every NASCAR race after the opener. And the reason NASCAR is on CTV Two on Saturday is because TSN has the Scotties and TSN2 has NBA All Star Saturday (8pm ET). TSN also has the Rising Stars game tonight (9pm ET) and the All Star Game on Sunday night (7pm ET).

NBC’s third annual Hockey Day in America is this Sunday. NBC has a doubleheader Sunday afternoon featuring Pittsburgh @ Buffalo (12:30pm ET) and Los Angeles @ Chicago (3:30pm ET). The press release details some of the stories that are featured. There is a bit of Canadian content too as Gord Miller will call the game in Buffalo.

And, lastly, Fox has announced its 2013 MLB broadcast schedule. Included are eight primetime games beginning in late May.

Canadian Sports Ratings Update: November 1

Here are the latest ratings. Thanks to Whitey Fisk and Bill Brioux for publicizing many of these.

CFL
BC-CGY, Oct 26, TSN: 701, 000
WPG-HAM, Oct 28, TSN: 672, 000
TOR-SSK, Oct 27, TSN: 1.026 million
EDM-MTL, Oct 28, TSN: 546, 000
HAM-TOR, Nov 1, TSN: 769, 000

MLB
DET-SF (g1), Oct 24, SN: 801, 000
DET-SF (g2), Oct 25, SN: 729, 000
SF-DET (g3), Oct 27, SN: 779, 000
SF-DET (g4), Oct 28, SN: 792, 000

NFL
NYG-DAL, Oct 28, Citytv: 508, 000
NO-DEN, Oct 28, TSN: 339, 000
SF-ARZ, Oct 29, TSN: 396, 000

Skate Canada
Men’s Free, Oct 27, CTV: 679, 000

NBA
IND-TOR, Oct 31, TSN: 346, 000

NASCAR
Martinsville 500, Oct 28, TSN2: 336, 000

Old Hockey
HNIC Your Pick, Oct 27, CBC: 181, 000

 

All numbers are BBM Canada 2+

 

 

A few notes…

• The World Series averaged 775, 000 viewers over four games on Sportsnet. That is slightly up from the 7 game series betwen Texan and St. Louis last season ;however, the first four games only averaged 567, 000 viewers. The hockey lockout obviously helps a bit, but it I think it is fair to say the popularity of baseball is slightly on the rise in Canada as well. This was the lowest rated World Series in history on FOX in America.
• The Pacers-Raptors game on Wednesday night was the highest rated Raptors game since the 2009-10 season. It was lower than most NBA Finals games from June, but higher than just about every other basketball game from last season. Yet again, a product of the NHL lockout. Usually TSN’s Wednesday Night Hockey is king on Wednesdays, while hoops is shuffled to TSN2. Basketball took centre-stage on Wednesday, and with no competition, brought in as many viewers as some nationally broadcast NHL games do. Now, can the Raps keep it up?
• Skate Canada Saturday night ratings were actually slightly down from a year ago, when CTV’s coverage when head-to-head with a Leafs-Penguins game that averaged over 2 million viewers.
• The three main NFL games (Sunday 4pm, Sunday 8pm, Monday) were down slightly from last week. The World Series (Sunday) and Hurricane Sandy (Monday) probably played a role in this.
• The CFL averaged 736, 000 viewers this week, buyoyed by over a million for the playoff bound Riders and Argonauts. I credited the lack of sucess of these two teams as a major factor in the drop in CFL ratings last year. Seems like their good seasons will help raise CFL ratings this year. As a whole, the ratings are slightly down over week 17 though.

Alert: Daytona 500 Goes Tonight at 7pm ET

NASCAR has announced that the Daytona 500 will begin tonight at 7pm ET on FOX and TSN2. Here is more information. This means TSN2 will no longer who the Devils-Rangers NHL game tonight.