Early ratings for the second seasons of CTV’s Jeff Ltd. and Global’s The Jane Show have taken a sharp drop from the relative glories of their first runs, following their return to the airwaves earlier this month.

Jeff Ltd. took the biggest hit, drawing only 224,000 viewers to its Feb. 10 season premiere, dipping to 222,000 during episode two. The sitcom about a big-headed advertising exec scored a season average of 739,000 last year, when it aired Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. after American Idol. Its current Saturday night slot puts it in a face-off against CBC powerhouse Hockey Night in Canada.

‘Certainly I’m not pleased with the numbers. Who would be, who was in my position?’ executive producer and star Jeff Seymour tells Playback Daily. ‘I didn’t think I’d have a snowball’s chance in hell against the third quarter of hockey.’

CTV is ‘as concerned as we are,’ he adds, noting that the net’s jampacked schedule makes scheduling difficult. He remains hopeful that Jeff Ltd. will gain momentum in the coming weeks

‘I am grateful to be in a position to have a show that needs to be juggled on a schedule,’ Seymour says, adding ‘you can’t have everything.’

Jeff is preceded by Robson Arms, which also debuted its 13-ep second season on Feb. 10 to a slightly better 333,000 viewers, though it dropped the following week to 318,000. The show, about the quirky residents of a Vancouver apartment complex, produced better numbers when it aired Fridays at 10 p.m. during the summer of ’05, drawing an average 450,000 viewers.

CTV declined to comment for this story.

Over at Global, early results for The Jane Show are down by nearly half from its first season, averaging a weak 154,000 for the two episodes seen so far this year, down from a season one average of 230,000.

The network’s sole Canadian-made sitcom, starring comic Teresa Pavlinek, airs in the seemingly plum Wednesday 10 p.m. timeslot, after Deal or No Deal.

Global spokesperson Grace Park says the network remains committed to the series, noting that only a few eps of the new season have aired.