CTV premiered its nighttime soap Whistler on June 25, drawing a respectable 550,000 viewers, and winning its Sunday 10 p.m. timeslot, though by the following week its BBM numbers had slipped to 371,000.

The reportedly $1.4-million per-episode series is a coproduction between Toronto’s Blueprint Entertainment and Vancouver’s Boardwatch Productions, dealing with murder, sex and intrigue on the slopes of its titular ski resort town. The show graced the cover of the Canadian edition of TV Guide for the week it debuted and follows Law & Order: Criminal Intent on CTV, which drew 693,000 and 732,000 viewers on the respective Sundays.

CTV declined to comment on the Whistler ratings, saying it was ‘premature’ to do so after only two episodes.

That same week also saw the premieres of two CBC shows – the stop-motion What It’s Like Being Alone and drama 11 Cameras. The network was not able to provide ratings.

CTV is seeing growth in its quirky family laugher Alice, I Think, which it called up from its sister channel, The Comedy Network. Nielsen numbers show it brought in 335,000 viewers to its Sunday 7 p.m. slot on July 2, up from roughly 251,000 for its June 18 premiere, and more than double the ratings for Alice’s second episode, which garnered just 165,000 viewers on June 25.

According to Nielsen, the 10-episode From the Ground Up with Debbie Travis drew a season average of 350,000 viewers to Global. The network remains big on the home reno show’s potential, and has ordered a second season. Production will begin in September, and it will return to the Global schedule mid-season.

The Canada Day FIFA World Cup match-up that saw Portugal eliminate England from the international soccer tournament drew an average of 1.6 million viewers to TSN, with its audience peaking at more than two million for the game-ending penalty shootout at around 1 p.m. This breaks the sportscaster’s previous World Cup best of 1.5 million in 1998 for the tourney final between Brazil and France.

Back at CTV, the second season of Instant Star will debut on July 18 at 8:30 p.m., airing after the results show of Canadian Idol. It’s a plum slot for the returning but much delayed half-hour drama series – about a pop star discovered through a televised singing competition – as BBM numbers show Canadian Idol averaged about 1.8 million for its first two performance shows, which aired June 26 and 27, and the subsequent results show on June 28, all at 8 p.m.