The fire under Flashpoint just keeps building. The homegrown cop drama won last Friday night for CTV with 1.74 million viewers, up sharply from the second-season premiere of 1.27 million a week earlier, according to BBM Nielsen Media Research.

That makes Flashpoint the most-watched Canadian show in more than a decade, excluding news and sports programming, the broadcaster said Monday.

Friday’s audience topped a previous high for Flashpoint of 1.52 million set in September. And the program, which launched simultaneously on CTV and CBS last summer, continues to build an audience stateside. The Canadian export drew 10.38 million viewers for CBS on Friday night in reverse simulcast, up from 10.1 million a week earlier, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Flashpoint lost a sliver of the 10.5 million audience that tuned into lead-in Ghost Whisperer at 8 pm, but went up in the core 18-49 demo in its second week. That helps the drama solidify its position as part of CBS’ crime series offerings this TV season alongside CSI and NCIS.

Also Friday night, Global Television’s hidden camera prank show, Howie Do It, slipped 14% to 626,000 in the 8 pm slot, from 770,000 viewers a week earlier, before drawing 658,000 in its second half-hour at 8:30 pm.

Tracking almost in lock-step with NBC stateside, the Howie Mandel-hosted series also slipped 14% to 6.06 million viewers from a debut on the peacock channel at 7.7 million viewers on Jan. 9.

In the 18-49 demo this past Friday, Howie Do It won the 8 pm slot on Global Television with 103,000 viewers in Toronto and another 42,000 viewers in Vancouver, both against Ghost Whisperer on CTV.

From Playback Daily