Montreal: It’s not just English Canadians who aren’t watching this country’s public broadcaster. Nearly two months into the fall TV season, most French-speaking Canadians aren’t tuning in to Radio-Canada’s latest slate of homegrown drama, either.

While TVA continues to attract the bulk of French-speaking viewers with old favorites such as Lance et compte by Communications Claude Héroux (averaging 1.6 million, season to date) and the third run of the hit reality show Occupation Double from Les Productions J (1.6 million) – the four new SRC dramas are ratings failures. (All ratings are 2+, province-wide for Quebec.)

Although the net’s Tout le monde en parle remains a top show – with an average of 1.6 million viewers each week – it’s the exception, not the rule.

According to BBM data released at the end of October, only about 493,000 are tuning in to Tout sur moi, a 13 x 30 sitcom/reality from Cirrus Communications, on Mondays at 9:30 p.m.

About 598,000 are watching the 13 x 60 dramatic comedy Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin by Sphère Média Plus on Tuesdays at 9 p.m., while the net’s flagship drama Le 7e round (Productions Pixcom) has also tanked with just 446,000 – likely because it’s up against TVA’s Occupation Double, Thursdays at 8 p.m.

The only SRC show making any headway this fall is Novem Télévision’s 13-episode comedy C.A. (for ‘Conseil d’administration’ or ‘board of directors’), which drew 700,000 viewers until early October, though it has since dropped.

Twenty of the 30 top French-language shows are broadcast on TVA. To make it into the top-30 list a program usually grabs around 700,000 viewers.

For TQS, the big ratings grab is the third run of Loft Story, a reality show that pulls in, on average, 1.2 million viewers every Sunday evening at 7 p.m.

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