Rogers’ hockey content brings Sportsnet neck-to-neck with TSN

Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. both used Numeris data Tuesday to proclaim their sports channel is No. 1 in the market, a virtual tie that Rogers said was enabled by its hockey content. Sportsnet president Scott Moore said Rogers’ five-year, $5.2 billion deal with the NHL, which began this broadcast year, was one of the main reasons for Sportsnet’s significant growth in audience. “There has been gigantic growth … If you put it in historical and global context, five years ago, if you took these same metrics, we were half of TSN’s audience,” Moore said in an interview Tuesday. “Now whether we beat them in a month or they beat us in the month, we have totally made up that ground.” When the NHL deal was signed in late 2013, Rogers’ then-CEO Nadir Mohamed said that Sportsnet was positioned to become the “No. 1 sports media brand in Canada” and that he expected NHL content to help it solidify its position. Bell said in a press release Tuesday that its TSN network over the last year had an average minute audience (AMA) — the total number of people watching at any given minute — among adults aged 24 to 54 of 52,500. It said the main Sportsnet channel only reached an AMA of 42,000, claiming that “TSN once again ranks as Canada’s #1 specialty channel in all key demos.” Rogers’ release, on the other hand, focused on ratings all for its Sportsnet-branded channels, including regional Sportsnet channels, as well as Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet 360, comparing them to Bell’s five TSN-branded channels. The result was an AMA of 63,000 for those watching Sportsnet, as opposed to an AMA of 60,000 watching TSN, among the same 24-54 demographic, according to Rogers’ numbers. Gord Hendren, president of Charlton Strategic Research Inc., said in a phone interview Tuesday that the companies are “counting the pie” differently, in order to be able to say they’re the top sports network. He noted that while “historically, TSN was a significant leader,” Rogers has made “some significant gains.” He said that claiming the highest ratings, as both companies are now doing, benefits the companies as the industry moves into a pick-and-pay era, where customers across Canada will be able to choose individual channels to subscribe to. It also benefits the companies when it comes to Sportsnet and TSN's carriage negotiations with broadcast distributors. “It’s coming up to renewal time, so those deals and prices of those deals is up for discussion. So having the ability to say that you’re No. 1 is again important,” said Hendren. Moore said that Rogers chooses to look at ratings overall and calculates ratings based on every one of the company’s channels, instead of focusing on its main sports channel. He said that TSN’s press release is “technically correct, but what they’re doing is comparing the main TSN channel to the main Sportsnet channel, so they’re not taking into the other channels.” “When I started in 2010, I wanted to be the No. 1 sports media brand in Canada. That meant not that more people would watch any individual one of our channels or platforms, but that in total, more people were watching and using our Sportsnet branded platforms than the other guys. And that’s actually the case,” Moore said. Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson said in an email that the numbers provided in Bell’s release is a standard measure from which channels are sold to advertisers and distributors. — With reporting by Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca and Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Rogers’ hockey content brings Sportsnet neck-to-neck with TSN

Broadcast | June 2, 2015

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Rogers’ hockey content brings Sportsnet neck-to-neck with TSN

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