TORONTO – Millions of viewers worldwide tuned in to see the Pittsburgh Penguins draw the first pick – and first dibs on Canadian hockey phenom Sidney Crosby – during TSN’s exclusive coverage of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft Order of Selection.
The five-hour SportsCentre news special, which aired last Friday (July 22) from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET, attracted a national average minute audience of 239,000 viewers, and a national audience reach of 1,176,000 viewers. Audience levels peaked at 378,000 viewers from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET, as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman revealed the 2005 NHL Entry Draft order.
And to think the NHL originally didn’t want to bother televising its draft lottery and had to be talked into it by TSN.
Audience numbers big at RDS, too, which attracted a national average minute audience of 83,000 viewers and a national audience reach of 695,000 viewers. RDS’ audience levels peaked at 137,000 from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. TSN’s and RDS’ combined national audience reach across Canada totaled 1,871,000 viewers.
TSN.ca recorded its seventh busiest day in TSN history on Friday with more than 3.44 million page views, roughly three times the average amount of traffic the website receives on a daily basis. Meanwhile, RDS.ca attracted 2.6 million page views, marking the busiest day in the website’s history.
Across Canada, radio listeners in every major market were also able catch TSN’s coverage of the NHL Draft Lottery on the FAN 590 in Toronto, CHED 630 in Edmonton, FAN 960 in Calgary, MOJO Radio in Vancouver and the Team 990 in Montreal.
In the U.S., ESPN News aired TSN’s broadcast of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft Order of Selection on a national basis. The TSN feed was also beamed regionally on American sports networks Altitude (Denver), Comcast Sports Net (Chicago, Mid-Atlantic and Philadelphia) and Madison Square Garden (New York) in their respective viewing areas. For cyber fans around the world, the NHL Draft Lottery unfolded live on NHL.com, AOL.com and MSN.com.
TSN, RDS and NHL Network will present live coverage of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft on Saturday, July 30 starting at 12 noon ET. TSN and RDS will present live coverage from 12 noon to 2 p.m. ET. NHL Network will simulcast the draft until 2 p.m. ET and will then continue to provide live Draft coverage until 4 p.m. ET. Bob McKenzie, Pierre McGuire and Gord Miller will be in Ottawa to cover this year’s Draft.
