Source: Winnipeg Free Press

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Looks like it will be a merry Christmas after all for Canada's embattled broadcasters.

After a gloomy year filled with "broken business model" rhetoric and dire ad revenue projections, network television has bounced back with a flurry of fall hits and rebounding ratings. New shows such as "Glee," "Battle of the Blades," "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "V" have boosted the bottom line at CBC, Global and CTV.

The greatest Christmas present of all may have been the introduction by ratings gatherer BBM Canada of Portable People Meters. The small PPM receivers - about the size of a cell phone - were introduced last September. Eliminating the need for participants to log on, the automatic receptors are worn by families in the ratings sample and provide a more accurate count of how many Canadians are watching TV.

This fall, they revealed that far more people are watching hit shows in Canada than previously estimated. Shows such as "House," "Survivor," "The Amazing Race" and "Dragon's Den" have seen ratings spike close to double their average from just one year earlier.

Even Canada's oldest prime time series - "Hockey Night in Canada" - has scored big this season, averaging just under two million viewers a week for Game One each Saturday night, almost twice last year's average.

Other CBC shows have taken big leaps forward under the new PPM data. The Sunday evening family drama "Heartland" went from an average of 574,000 last season to 1,014,000 each week this season. "Family programs seem to be among the big PPM winners," says Kirstine Stewart, the CBC's executive director of network programming who also points to a jump in viewers who live outside of Canada's largest cities.

Not even PPMs, however, can account for the rapid rise in fortunes for "Dragon's Den," which Stewart says has doubled its audience every season since being introduced. The venture capital reality series has grown from a barely sustainable 200,000 viewers in 2007 to an average of 777,000 last season and 1,725,000 this past fall. Ordering new episodes to last through the spring was CBC's smartest move this season.

Better yet, the show is sold out in terms of ad sponsorship through the remainder of the season. CBC also is seeing a rise in sponsorship placement, too, with bank signage and other references turning up on shows like "Being Erica," one of the few CBC offerings not to see any lift from the PPM numbers this season.

Other networks also have enjoyed the PPM bounce. Global senior vice-president Kathy Gardner notes their prime time offerings are up an average of 33 per cent this season, slightly higher than at rival networks. "Survivor" and "House" have doubled their numbers and shows like "Lie to Me," "NCIS" and "Bones" have seen significant gains.

The growth under PPM data has not come at the expense of specialty channels, says Gardner, who has tracked a similar gain at the many Canwest specialty stations. There has been a shift in viewership within specialty, however, with sports and family channels featuring children's programming trending up while "rerun" channels featuring seen-it-before fare slide down.

CTV, too, has seen great gains under PPM data, with "The Amazing Race" up 46 per cent over last season, averaging 2.68 million viewers eight years into its run.

New ways of watching television have had an impact on ratings this year. Canadians tend not to "PVR" or "DVR" (digitally store and watch later) TV shows as much as American's do. Gardner charts Canadian PVR penetration at under 10 per cent, about a third of that in the United States. The shows that tend to get the biggest lift in Canada from PVR use seem to air opposite big hits such as "House" or "Glee." "Cougar Town," a Citytv comedy airing opposite "Glee," for example, is among the top PVR performers proportionally in Canada.

Not all the good news can be attributed to new technology. As Stewart points out, numbers are up for some shows in the U.S., too, and there has been no major ratings gathering innovation in that country.

The tough economy, some speculate, has led to more "cocooning," with more viewers staying home and watching TV rather than venturing out for entertainment. HBO executive vice-president Richard Plepler speculated that that had boosted his premium cable service this year, although breakthrough seasons for shows like "True Blood" and "Hung" haven't hurt, either.

Gardner feels "House" and "Survivor" are simply having better seasons creatively, with both shows also seeing gains on U.S. networks. Even non-hard-number crunchers are seeing higher buzz levers for certain shows this season. MediaBuzz blogger Ed Keller noted in a recent posting that shows like "The Vampire Diaries" and "Glee" have turned viewers on to TV again. It couldn't happen at a better time for Canadian programmers looking for a little Christmas cheer.

Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.

© Winnipeg Free Press