According to data provided by Numeris, Rogers Sportsnet averaged 2.01 million viewers as the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night. During the opener last year — held on a Tuesday night — those same teams drew
an average of 2.332 million on the CBC. That represents an audience decrease of 14%.
In a release, Rogers said the audience still set a network record and was the top program across Canada Wednesday night. A request for comment was not immediately returned.
Rogers has agreed to pay the NHL $5.2-billion over the life of the agreement, successfully elbowing archrival TSN from the national picture. Rogers has a four-year sub-licensing agreement with the CBC, with Rogers assuming editorial control of Hockey Night In Canada.
According to Rogers, Sportsnet is available in 8.2 million Canadian homes. (Two other Sportsnet channels that will carry games this year, Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet 360, are available in 6.1 million and 5.8 million homes, respectively.)
Nearly 12 million Canadian households have at least basic television packages, according to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The CBC would likely be in all but a few of those
“They’re well-penetrated services,” Rogers Media president Keith Pelley said in an interview with National Post last week. “They’re not as penetrated as the conventional broadcasters, and one of the reasons that we thought it was imperative to do a deal with the CBC was based on the broad distribution.”
Rogers has built a new $4.5-million studio in the CBC’s downtown Toronto headquarters and has retained a small group of CBC employees to work on Hockey Night as part of the agreement.
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