TSN is relishing the record-breaking numbers of the final game of the IIHF World Junior Championships, which on Monday handed the sportscaster its most-watched broadcast ever.

An eye-popping 3.7 million viewers tuned in to watch Canada defeat Sweden 5-1 for its fifth consecutive gold medal at the World Juniors, according to BBM Nielsen. The numbers, which peaked at 4.7 million at 9:58 pm, cemented the broadcast’s place as the most-watched program on a Canadian specialty (all numbers 2+).

The news was also good for RDS, which nabbed 602,000 viewers, also a record, for a combined Canadian viewership of 4.3 million.

The tournament in Ottawa averaged 1.7 million viewers for Team Canada’s six games on TSN. The sportscaster also snatched an additional 100,000 viewers watching live streams of the gold medal game on its website.

Meanwhile, over on CBC, the final outing of the long-running comedy troupe the Royal Canadian Air Farce scored 1.5 million viewers on New Year’s Eve – making it the most-watched episode of the season.

The political sketch show ended its 16th and final season with an average of 781,000 viewers per episode. The show had been a staple on CBC since 1993, and ran for 20 years before that on CBC Radio.
From Playback Daily