Turns out the last ones to know The Big Bang Theory is a major hit on Canadian TV are its stars.

‘We had no idea the show is so big here,’ Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper on the CBS/CTV sitcom, said Thursday while in Toronto along with fellow cast members Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar to promote the series locally.

‘They don’t tell us much about other countries,’ Simon Helberg added as the trio got set for a series of on-air interviews from CTV’s production headquarters on Queen Street.

The sitcom’s cast had good reason for their Canadian media blitz: their comedy about genius physicists and their nerdy friends is a ratings winner for CTV.

The success follows CBS shifting The Big Bang Theory from Monday nights last year to Thursdays this season, filling the former Survivor slot at 8 p.m.

The result is a 2009 average audience of 2.18 million for 19 episodes giving way to an average of 3.14 million Canadian viewers for the first two episodes of the current season on Thursday nights, according to BBM Canada PPM data.

The 44% year-on-year audience pop has seen The Big Bang Theory vault to the top-rated show for Canada’s fall TV season among total viewers and in two key A18-49 and A25-54 demos.

CTV also runs The Big Bang Theory nightly in prime time as a strand, excluding Thursday nights.

Helberg said the sitcom’s success in Canada and elsewhere internationally is surreal.

‘It makes you want to know what’s going on now with the show in Budapest,’ he insisted.

‘Not politically, because who cares about that, but just our show, how is that affecting the world?’ Helberg added.

From Playback Daily