Canadians may be more inclined towards the hockey, curling and other icy events of the Winter Olympics, but this summer more Canadians were watching the Olympics unfold in Athens than did when the Summer Games were hosted in Sydney, Australia four years ago.

CBC’s coverage of the 2004 Olympics began Aug. 13 amid sluggish ad sales and concerns that, rather than making a bundle on the international event, the pubcaster would have trouble recouping what it spent on production and the Canadian broadcast rights. In fact, as reported in the last issue of Playback, CBC trimmed its ad rates to accommodate domestic advertisers. However, almost two weeks into the 16-day event, it looked like Canadians were tuning in after all.

More than 1.5 million Canadians watched the opening ceremonies live on CBC and Newsworld combined. When the ceremonies were rebroadcast in primetime, more that two million Canadians tuned in.

As of Aug. 18, day five of the Summer Games, an average of 1.2 million Canadians were tuning in to the CBC daily for Olympic coverage during primetime hours, 6-11 p.m. Overall, viewers averaged 712,000, an 8% jump in viewership, compared to the number of viewers who tuned in to watch the 2000 Summer Games unfold in Sydney.

The numbers jumped slightly over the weekend of Aug. 20, which culminated with the Canadian men’s fours rowing team taking silver. On Aug. 22, 1.43 million Canadians tuned in throughout the day, with the primetime audience reaching 1.48 million.

At that time, CBC’s overall audience averaged 732,000, up 11% over Sydney, while its primetime audience averaged 1.2 million viewers, down 12% compared to the 2000 Summer Games.

-www.cbc.ca