Average television audiences for the Stanley Cup finals are down 18 per cent year over year although the games are still the most watched programs of the night in Canada, broadcast rights holder Rogers Media said Monday.

The first three games of the championship series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the San Jose Sharks averaged 1.86 million viewers for Hockey Night in Canada, with game three averaging 2.1 million, Rogers Media communications director Andrea Goldstein said in an email.

So far, the Stanley Cup finals have reached 10.1 million Canadians while the subscriber base in Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE streaming service is up 19 per cent year over year, she added.

The first 20 NHL playoff games in April reportedly drew an average of just 513,000 viewers on the CBC and Rogers Sportsnet’s cable channels — a 61-per-cent decline from the first round in 2015 that featured five Canadian teams.

All seven Canadian based teams failed to quality for the playoffs this year, the second season of Rogers $5.2 billion, multi-year broadcast rights deal with the NHL that gave Rogers Sportsnet control of the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada brand.

Ratings have “ticked up,” compared to earlier rounds, Rogers Media business unit president Rick Brace said, adding that the tradition and star power of the Pens led by Sidney Crosby and Russian forward Evgeni Malkin have brightened the picture.

Audience measurement service Numeris said the third round of the NHL playoffs on CBC placed 20th among the top 30 programs aired on English-language conventional TV and specialty channels in Canada for the week ended May 22.

Competition from the NBA playoffs as well as the lack of a major U.S. market entry in the final present ratings challenges in the U.S while in Canada hockey has faced off against the Toronto Raptors in the NBA eastern conference series and the Rogers-owned Toronto Blue Jays MLB team that has seen strong fan interest after winning the American League East in 2015.

Speaking at an event in Toronto, Scott Moore president of Sportsnet and NHL properties for parent Rogers Communications, said the Jays have averaged more than a million viewers 10 times this season versus only one game that drew a million at the same point in 2015.

“Viewership is up substantially,” he said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: