Behind two weeks of David Asper’s invading living rooms and three months into rerun season, The Riot at Christie Pits winds up one of few CanWest Global properties that have ably matched er in the Thursday at 10 p.m. time slot.

Airing Aug. 15, Christie Pits tied er in the Toronto/Hamilton dma, with each drawing a 7.2 rating (of all the households in the market, 7.2% were watching the Breakthrough Films-produced program), according to A.C. Nielsen statistics.

The one-hour dramatization of a race riot at a downtown Toronto park ran directly behind a rerun of Wings, which followed repeats of Seinfeld, Third Rock From the Sun and Friends. On the Toronto/Hamilton index for the week, Christie Pits ranked fifth, higher than any primetime inventory belonging to WIC Western International Communications affiliate chch-tv or Citytv.

The program was ably supported by the CanWest promotions machine, which alternated a trailer from the show with a one-to-one introduction to the history of the riot by a serious-faced Asper. With the Traders summer season turning up the likes of a 1.3 rating July 11 (er, 7.3) and a 2.3 rating July 4 (er, 8.4), maybe Asper

Nah.