One country, two television solitudes. While in Quebec, the top 10 most watched shows each week is made up entirely of Quebec productions, in English Canada, it almost exclusively includes American titles.
While we have just underlined July 1, this observation confirms that in terms of listening habits, the beautiful province diverges sharply from the ROC (Rest of Canada).
Numéris’ weekly data reveals that during the 2020-2021 calendar, only one Canadian program appeared regularly in the leading pack: the CTV Evening News. With an average of around 1,600,000 viewers, the newscast (airs Monday through Friday at 6 p.m.) saves the day for the Canadian offer.
Hollywood fiction
Courtesy photo
Grey’s Anatomy
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Fiction series from the United States largely dominate the rankings. The Good Doctor appears at number 1 with 2,500,000 followers. Titles like 9-1-1, Grey’s Anatomy, Lone Star, Station 19, New Amsterdam, NCIS and This is Us, which can rally 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 viewers. The top 10 includes only one reality show: The Masked Singer, including the Quebec adaptation (Masked singers) will be presented at TVA this fall.
Some Canadian productions are making their presence felt a little further in the standings, such as the Maple Leafs hockey games (around 1,200,000) and Murdoch Mysteries, CBC’s veteran crime drama, which typically retains its million regulars. And this winter, Big Brother Canada was regularly in the top 20. But that’s it.
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2/30 in Quebec
In Quebec, only two foreign titles regularly carved out a place in the weekly top 30 of the most popular shows last winter: The good doctor (French version of The Good Doctor) and Talent to spare (America’s Got Talent), both broadcast on TVA.
The rest of the ranking was made up of local productions like District 31, Les beaux malaises 2.0, Star Académie, Live from the universe and All the life.
To give up
The voracious appetite of English Canadians for the American offer does not date from Sunday, underlines the director of the School of the media of UQAM, Pierre Barrette.
“It’s been like this for several years. Canada’s most popular channel, CTV, broadcasts American content almost through and through. It’s a bit as if TVA were showing 70% of foreign series at prime time. “
The absence of a language barrier, combined with the imbalance of budgets, explains – in part – why the English-speaking provinces prefer American TV.
Courtesy photo
The Masked Singer
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The attitude of ROC broadcasters is also fueling this major trend. “It looks like they have resigned,” comments Pierre Barrette. Against the big American guns, they put out documentaries, shows that did not cost much … It is as if they thought it was lost in advance. ”
Even more unsubscribes to ” Rest of Canada »
Canada is also divided over the churn phenomenon. On the English-speaking side, one in five viewers have abandoned their pay television service. In French-speaking Quebec, we are talking more about one in seven viewers.
This is what emerges from a study by the Media Technologies Observer (OTM), published on June 24.
What is more, 23% of Anglophones currently subscribing to traditional cable say they are “very” or “somewhat likely” to cancel their subscription and join the group of “cord cutters” (cord cutters). Among Quebec television viewers, we are talking about a proportion of 16%.
Cord cutters are usually active on the internet, young and educated. Another interesting detail: 71% of them subscribe to two or more video-on-demand services like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.
Not surprising
These figures come as no surprise to Pierre Barrette, director of the UQAM Media School.
Platforms streaming offering much more content in English than in French, they are more likely to interest the ROC.
But beware, the language barrier is not the only reason behind this gap. It would also be reductive to think the opposite.
“Quebec television has succeeded in gaining the loyalty of its audiences by presenting quality programs,” indicates Pierre Barrette. She has developed programming that is not modeled on the American spirit. It has its own flavor that people spontaneously identify with. ”
Top 5 shows most watched in English Canada
1. Super Bowl
- 7,028,000 viewers
2. Oprah With Meghan and Harry
- 3,076,000 viewers
3. The Good Doctor
- 2,120,000 viewers
4. The Oscars
- 2,119,000 viewers
5. 9-1-1
- 1,871,000 viewers
Source: Confirmed data from Numéris, all 2+, from July 1, 2020 to June 20, 2021, compiled by deepblue can
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