Scotties numbers set records

A little late with this news but the TV ratings are in for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and it is impressive.

OK, it’s actually beyond impressive, into the WOWZA category.

Take a look at some of these numbers:

** More than seven million different Canadians watched some part of the championship. With a population of approximately 35 million that’s one-fifth of every last person in this country.

** The average audience for the entire tournament was 566,000, which is massive considering many of the broadcasts were on in the middle of the day, traditionally a low viewing time.

** The final attracted 1.05 million viewers – going up against the powerhouse Academy Awards. That’s up 15 per cent over last year. It should be noted that last year came on the heels of the Olympics so there was probably some burnout in curling-watching.

Now Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada was the top sports show of the week (2.2 million), but after that curling ruled the charts. Compare it to things like the Daytona 500 (500k), the NHL outdoor game with the Kings vs. Sharks (also 500k), or the Leafs at the Hurricanes (another 500k) and you see the power that curling has.

You can probably expect similar number for next week’s Brier too, which, by the way, will experiment with showing two games from the same draw at the same time, using TSN’s five channel feed.

It does bring into question how these growing numbers will affect ticket sales as the CCA and host committees are trying to find ways to get bums in seats.