TORONTO – Rogers Media's TV ratings for the overall NHL Stanley Cup playoff rounds fell this season, compared to the 2014 championship rounds, due in part to Canadians viewing live game action on digital platforms.
Rogers Media, which has just ended the first year of a 12-year, $5.2 billion national broadcast and multimedia contract with the NHL, told Cartt.ca that the overall Stanley Cup playoff round on the flagship Sportsnet channel and CBC Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts pulled in an average audience of 1.5 million viewers, down 2% from the 1.53 million average audience for the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs on CBC and TSN, according to Numeris data.
The company also reported an average audience of 2.39 million viewers for the overall Stanley Cup final round, down 12% from the 2014 championship final round average audience of 2.72 million. The most-watched final round telecast was game six, which averaged 2.62 million viewers as the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-0 to earn the big silver mug..
Broken out between channels, the average audience for live games on the CBC, which has a sub-licensing deal with Rogers Media for NHL game telecasts, came to 1.963 million, down 7% from a CBC 2014 average of 2.105 million. As well, the average audience, according to Numeris, for exclusive live games on Sportsnet National/360 was 540,300 viewers, down 19% from the 2014 average audience for TSN/TSN2 games at 668,400 viewers.
Year-on-year differences include TSN last year airing part of the third round playoff games, while the CBC broadcast all round three match-ups in 2015. Cord-cutting and digital/mobile viewership are also thought to be factors.
That includes Rogers’ digital platform GameCentre Live, which saw total average viewership and usage during the 2015 Stanley Cup playoff round triple the number of Canadian subscribers and audience from last year, according to Rogers Media. The CBC.ca game streaming on the NeuLion-driven portal averaged just under 19,000 viewers during the Stanley Cup final round.
Elsewhere, the Sportsnet.ca website, which did not feature live games, secured 2.014 million video views during the 2015 Stanley Cup final round for its content, up 455% from the 441,822 video views secured last year as part of its final round coverage.
Rogers Media also reports 504,130 mobile video views of its NHL final round content, up 1,368% from 36,842 mobile views last year.
Illustration by Paul Lachine
