Critical acclaim of cbc’s The Newsroom played itself out in the ratings Oct. 21, with Ken Finkleman’s new brainchild hitting a 1.1 million national audience 2+, according to ACNielsen statistics.

Running opposite game two of the World Series, cbc’s Monday night comedy line-up held its own. A repeat of The Royal Canadian Air Farce gathered a 718,000 audience at 7:30, followed by Just For Laughs at 1,085,000 and Comics! at 888,000. This Hour Has 22 Minutes crested at 9 p.m., drawing 1.5 million viewers and providing a strong lead for The Newsroom’s debut.

While without the same headline treatment, the cbc’s Oct. 13 broadcast of Lyddie – a tv movie from Toronto’s The Film Works, Regina’s Minds Eye Pictures and the u.k.’s Wall to Wall Television – scored a Sunday night audience of 1.1 million in its 8-10 p.m. slot Oct. 13.

In other debuts, numbers for the premiere of Millennium Oct. 25 are on track with expectations. The Chris Carter factor, heavy promotions, and a plot quality liquidating the impulse to channel surf, cumulated in a 21.4 rating of the 18-49 audience demo in the Toronto/Hamilton market.