TSN laid a big hit on its rivals in the hotly contested battle for viewers on the National Hockey League’s trade deadline day.
The sports specialty channel averaged 182,000 viewers 2+ for Wednesday’s Tradecentre ’09 coverage according to BBM Nielsen Media Research data. That exceeded the combined average viewership for chief rivals Rogers Sportsnet and The Score—which averaged 71,000 and 15,000 viewers respectively.
Sportsnet, however, says its 2+ audience increased 28% over 2008, the largest increase among the three sports specialty channels. And in the advertiser-friendly adults 25-54 demo, Sportsnet’s audience was up 59% over last year.
TSN’s viewership peaked at 295,000 viewers between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., as the trade deadline approached. More than 1.5 million Canadians tuned into the CTVglobemedia-owned channel at some point during its 10 hours of coverage of a deadline day that lacked any real intrigue.
It drew 150,000 viewers for a special one-hour edition of its 6 p.m. sportscast Sportscentre—ahead of both Sportsnet Connected (53,000) and The Score’s Hockey Talk (23,000)—and 214,000 viewers for the 10 p.m. show. In addition, viewership of its Molson That’s Hockey show was up 54% over its season-to-date average.
TSN also connected with hockey fans online, with its website TSN.ca logging 15.8 million page views—11% more than its previous high and more than seven times its daily average. Each of the three busiest days in TSN.ca’s history have come on trade deadline day. TSN Mobile attracted a record 517,000 page views, while the broadcaster sent out close to 500,000 NHL trade text alerts. Rogers Sportsnet did not provide online audiences.
Advertisers, too, flocked to TSN, with Labatt, Molson, McDonalds, RIM, Scotiabank, Honda, Mastercard, Forzani and Tim Horton’s all among its sponsors.
