CBC ‘very happy’ with Pan Am TV ratings, defends amount of live coverage

TORONTO – When considering the expectations set for Canada’s athletes, Toronto’s 2015 Pan American Games have been an unqualified success.

Heading into Sunday’s closing ceremony, the medal tally is poised to be Canada’s best-ever at the Pan Am Games, topping the 196 won in Winnipeg in 1999.

Canada’s medal haul “has certainly contributed to the buzz around the games,” says Trevor Pilling, head of programming at CBC Sports.

With CBC the Canadian broadcast rights holder for the next three Olympic Games, Pilling will take the momentum.

“I think it sets us up very nicely for the Olympics next year.”

Still, beyond the podium, how did these games perform for CBC?

Held on a Friday, the opening ceremony drew 1.66 million total viewers (1.93 million if you add viewers on CBC News Network). It was a strong start, but behind “The Amazing Race Canada,” “Masterchef” and “America’s Got Talent” for that week.

It was a different picture in the Toronto/Hamilton area, where most of the athletic events took place. The Pan Am opening ceremony topped all shows that week in that region with 966,000 total viewers.

CBC’s daily prime-time coverage of the games hovered around the 900,000 mark nationally in overnight estimates, with afternoon coverage in the 600,000 to 650,000 range. It was not until Wednesday of the final week that CBC cracked the one-million mark in terms of national prime-time audience estimates.

The Pan Am Games were not a big draw with younger viewers. On Sunday, July 17, for example, of the estimated 870,000 viewers tuned into CBC’s prime-time coverage, only 276,000 were in the 18-to-49 demographic.

Nevertheless, Pilling maintains that CBC is “very happy with the audience. There is no question that Canada has embraced the games.”

Some critics complained that CBC erred by not offering viewers live coverage of two main Pan Am events: Canada’s surprise gold medal win over the United States in men’s baseball and the women’s triumph in the basketball final.

Pilling counters that CBC offered more live coverage than ever before at a Pan Am Games. Besides, covering any multi-sports games, “you’re faced with a number of difficult programming decisions,” he says.

A fundamental for CBC — which committed to airing “The National” newscast weeknights at 10 p.m. ET sharp — was “not to start an event you can’t finish.” This came into play with the big baseball and basketball gold medal games.

Those events were offered to Canadians live via streaming, with 44,818 watching the women’s basketball gold medal game and 57,780 viewing the men’s baseball gold medal game.

CBC did expand its Pan Am coverage as the games went on, adding 12 hours spread across afternoon and weekend schedules.

“It’s a bit of a silver lining, frankly, that Canadians wanted more of our coverage,” says Pilling.

Extra coverage extended to CBC’s broadcast partnership with Sportsnet. The Rogers-owned network, which carried the Pan Am soccer action, made an 11th-hour deal to carry Friday’s men’s basketball semifinal game featuring Team Canada across its regional channels.

As for Sunday’s closing ceremony, Pilling isn’t too concerned about the kerfuffle over Kanye West, who was hired by the local organizing committee as the headliner. (Pitbull and Serena Ryder will also perform.) He points out that West is “an international superstar” and that the event is being handled by the “same folks who did the opening and closing ceremonies as the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.”

“Hopefully,” says Pilling, “all of the elements together and combined, as well as what Canadian athletes did for the duration of the games, will help drive a lot of people to that closing ceremony.”

— Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.