Catherine O'Hara poses for a photo after winning the Icon Award at the Comedy and TV Drama awards evening at the Canadian Screen Awards, in Toronto, on Friday, April 14, 2023. Preliminary ratings suggest fewer people tuned into a revamped Canadian Screen Awards that swapped live announcements for pre-taped interviews and comedy bits. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
TORONTO – Preliminary ratings suggest fewer people watched the pre-taped Canadian Screen Awards on CBC than last year, with numbers plunging by more than half of those in pre-pandemic times.
The public broadcaster shared overnight data from Numeris that reports an average audience of 136,000 for Sunday’s hour-long telecast compared to 2022’s show, which averaged 146,000 viewers.
The overnight numbers refer to viewers over the age of 2, but among the coveted advertising age group of 25-to-54 year-olds, the show averaged 31,000 viewers compared to 14,000 the year before.
The public broadcaster would not release live viewership numbers for its streaming service CBC Gem.
This year’s Screen Awards show offered comedy bits and highlights of seven non-televised galas where practically all of the awards were handed out in the days prior.
The awards show that aired April 10, 2022 was also a pre-recorded one-hour special but it included live announcements of the marquee categories and acceptance speeches.
The audience drop was even steeper compared to pre-pandemic times, when the awards bash was a two-hour live event. Numeris data shows the Screen Awards that aired March 31, 2019 had an average audience of 335,000 and an average 25-to-54 audience of 84,000.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 18, 2023.
