January 03, 2006
GN001

ROUND ROBIN RATINGS RECORD FOR WORLD JUNIORS ON TSN

- Canada/USA game on New Year's Eve outdraws HNIC by 2:1 margin -

VANCOUVER (January 3, 2006) - Canada's 3-2 victory over USA on December 31 put TSN's coverage of the 2006 IIHF World Junior Championship into the record books.

The New Year's Eve match-up attracted a national average minute audience of 1.4 million viewers - the most ever for a World Junior round robin game, and gives TSN a four-game round robin average of 1.24 million viewers*, making it the most-watched round robin in TSN's 16 years of televising the annual tournament.

The audience level for the Canada/USA game is even more notable, considering the match-up outdrew the combined total viewership for the Hockey Night in Canada doubleheader (CBC - Game #1: Leafs/New Jersey - 612,000; Game #2: Edmonton/Calgary - 742,000).

The Canada/USA World Junior game ranks as the 13th most-watched program of all-time on TSN, and surpasses the previous World Junior round robin single game high set last year (1.33 million for the first round robin game featuring Canada vs. Slovakia).

This year's round robin average represents a 15 per cent increase over the average of the four Team Canada round robin games at last year's World Juniors in North Dakota (1,075,000 viewers), and a 29 per cent increase over the 2003 tournament in Halifax (959,000 viewers.)

These strong ratings clearly demonstrate that TSN's audiences for major properties rival and even outdraw audiences for sports properties on conventional television.

All results were made available by Nielsen Media Research.

A total of 17 World Junior broadcasts on TSN have now topped more than 1 million viewers, the largest being the 2003 Gold Medal Game in Halifax with 3.45 million viewers - the biggest audience in network history. TSN has been televising the World Juniors since 1991, and six of the Top 10 programs of all-time are World Junior broadcasts.

TSN's coverage of the 2006 IIHF World Junior Championship continues today with the Semifinals (6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT, and 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT), followed on January 5 with the Bronze Medal Game (3 p.m. ET/12 noon PT) and Gold Medal Game (6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT). All games are available in High Definition on TSN HD.

TSN is Canada's Sports Leader. Setting the Canadian sports broadcasting standard, TSN's flagship news program, SportsCentre, was voted the number-one source for sports news by sports fans from across the country.** TSN's comprehensive broadcast schedule also includes the NHL, Toronto Maple Leafs and international hockey, the Olympic Games, CFL, NFL, PGA TOUR and all four golf Majors, NASCAR, Formula One, Champ Car and IRL auto racing, Blue Jays baseball, NBA, curling, tennis, soccer, figure skating and amateur sports action. TSN HD offers more sports coverage, more hours and more events in High Definition than any other network in Canada, reinforcing TSN's position as Canada's Sports Leader in High Definition. TSN is available in eight million households. TSN's programming and news content is also available on-line at TSN.ca.