J
Joseph_Gallant
Guest
The results of Canada's other national election on January 23rd are in.
And while there will be a changing of the guard on Parliament Hill, the results of this election were the same as the other national election of 2004: Both concerned the TV ratings race.
Digital Home Canada reports that CTV's Lloyd Robertson won the election-night ratings race by a margin of 18 percent more viewers over CBC and nearly twice the number of viewers watching Global.
In fact, the article noted that more people watched CTV's election-night coverage this time than in 2004. I see two possible reasons: (1) The fact that the Liberals were voted out of power for the first time in over a decade may have drawn-in viewers; but most importantly (2) This election was held in January, when many more Canadians are home on a cold Winter night to watch television, as opposed to 2004, when the election night broadcast was on a warm Summer evening, and as a result, more people were out to enjoy the nice weather.
This CTV press release also publicizes the network's victory in the ratings.
One note: Given that Global finished far behind both CTV and CBC both this past Monday and in 2004, could the network next time decide not to broadcast wall-to-wall election-night coverage, but instead, run some sort of entertainment special during which brief election updates would be broadcast throughout the evening?? Global could present between 5 and 7 1/2 minutes worth of election updates every half-hour during the entertainment special, with the show being interrupted to broadcast the announcement of who the winning party is and by how much, concession speeches of the losing party leaders and the victory speech of the winning party's leader.
Or, Global could broadcast an entertainment special with election updates until 12 Midnight Eastern and then broadcast an election wrap-up beginning at 12 Midnight ET, which would run no more than an hour and likely include the live concession and victory speeches.
Were Global to do this next time, they would attract far more election-night viewers and perhaps become competitive in the ratings with CBC and CTV, but the network might face many negative comments for not going with wall-to-wall election-night coverage.
And while there will be a changing of the guard on Parliament Hill, the results of this election were the same as the other national election of 2004: Both concerned the TV ratings race.
Digital Home Canada reports that CTV's Lloyd Robertson won the election-night ratings race by a margin of 18 percent more viewers over CBC and nearly twice the number of viewers watching Global.
In fact, the article noted that more people watched CTV's election-night coverage this time than in 2004. I see two possible reasons: (1) The fact that the Liberals were voted out of power for the first time in over a decade may have drawn-in viewers; but most importantly (2) This election was held in January, when many more Canadians are home on a cold Winter night to watch television, as opposed to 2004, when the election night broadcast was on a warm Summer evening, and as a result, more people were out to enjoy the nice weather.
This CTV press release also publicizes the network's victory in the ratings.
One note: Given that Global finished far behind both CTV and CBC both this past Monday and in 2004, could the network next time decide not to broadcast wall-to-wall election-night coverage, but instead, run some sort of entertainment special during which brief election updates would be broadcast throughout the evening?? Global could present between 5 and 7 1/2 minutes worth of election updates every half-hour during the entertainment special, with the show being interrupted to broadcast the announcement of who the winning party is and by how much, concession speeches of the losing party leaders and the victory speech of the winning party's leader.
Or, Global could broadcast an entertainment special with election updates until 12 Midnight Eastern and then broadcast an election wrap-up beginning at 12 Midnight ET, which would run no more than an hour and likely include the live concession and victory speeches.
Were Global to do this next time, they would attract far more election-night viewers and perhaps become competitive in the ratings with CBC and CTV, but the network might face many negative comments for not going with wall-to-wall election-night coverage.
00 and :30 would be national coverage, :15 and :45 would be local coverage), whereas CTV gave about 10 minutes per hour, and City and CBC gave zero.