TORONTO – Nearly two-thirds of all Canadians watched NHL playoff action these past two weeks on Sportsnet and CBC, with the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs reaching 22.2 million Canadians, says Sportsnet.
Five of the top 10 most-watched NHL broadcasts of all-time on Sportsnet were recorded in round 1, with Sunday night’s Washington at Toronto decisive game 6 ranking first with a reach of 8.4 million Canadians and an average audience of 3.47 million viewers.
The single most watched game of round 1 was the second game of the Toronto/Washington series, which delivered an average audience of 3.64 million viewers. Audience levels peaked at 5.36 million viewers at the end of the first overtime period.
The five series featuring Canadian teams averaged 1.8 million viewers per game, while the overall average audience for all of round 1 was 1.3 million viewers.
Sportsnet added that daily visitors to its website were up 36% over last year, while video views were up 45%; web visitors to Sportsnet Now increased 82% over last year, while visitors to the app increased 167%; and unique users of Rogers NHL GameCentre Live per game were up 86% over last year, while total minutes streamed were up 71%.
