Wednesday’s first game of the Stanley Cup finals scored record audience numbers for CBC‘s Hockey Night In Canada – 5.6 million, the most for any NHL game on the national public broadcaster.
Most of the series’ inventory is already sold. Alan Dark, CBC’s executive director of the revenue group (formerly the media sales and marketing group), estimates CBC has only 6-7% of its inventory left to sell.
However, “we’re on the street today with the largest unit rate we’ve ever had for Hockey Night In Canada,” Dark told Marketing. “We’re at about a 50% premium on the highest unit rate in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs.” And advertisers are buying.
Of course, the ratings are due in part to the presence of a Canadian team in the final – the Vancouver Canucks, which beat the Boston Bruins in Game 1. However, Dark notes that audience measurement has changed as well with the addition of the portable people meters, which track out-of-home media exposure as well.
“We can get a much more solid read on audience numbers on these big, signature events,” he said.
The high ratings will “definitely help us, going into next year, with our audience projections,” Dark said.
