Memo to Friends' Steering Committee

On November 20th I [Ian Morrison] sent you a content analysis report on the new CANADA NOW, both its regional and Canada-wide components.

This memo summarizes national data from Nielsen Media Research on the audience for CBC's supper hour shows in comparable periods in 1999 and 2000.

The new supper hour show went on the air on October 2nd, 2000. Its average audience for its initial two months, October and November 2000, was 419,000. The regional/local components, in the aggregate, achieved a 445,000 average audience over the two months, while the Vancouver-based Canada-wide show averaged only 394,000 over the period.

This compares with an average audience of 484,000 for the EARLY EVENING NEWS in October/November 1999.

This means that the regional/local component of CANADA NOW has lost 8% of its 1999 audience base, while the Vancouver-based national show is attracting 19% less audience than CBC's EARLY EVENING NEWS achieved in 1999. On an hourly basis, the annual decline is 13%.

In the Toronto market, the only component of the Nielsen data base large enough to yield meaningful regional data, CBC has doubled its audience from about 30,000 to 60,000 viewers in the 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. period since 1999. This means that the decline in CBC Television's supper hour viewing elsewhere in Canada has been 21%, year over year.

All the above statistics have been derived from a comparison of the average audience in October and November 1999 with the same period this year.

Bureau of Broadcast Measurement data are expected to become available in mid-January 2001 which will enable comparisons in individual markets, and I will forward them as soon as possible.