The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 78

E14 TIIK VANCOUVER SUN. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 2000 MIX Til I I Ll! I'll ii ii i Hi nf" A LA i vv I Vi KA 54) (- 'Yr. 13j About 789,000 people in Vancouver and Victoria watched this year's Oscars (left). We also watched, from top right, Regis Philbin, Tony Parsons and Barbara Walters. A lot.

What we watch THE TRUTH and nothing but We watch trash but Vancouver TV viewers are still a more discerning audience than most. says the most dramatic difference between the two cities is the way CTV's audience, a juggernaut in Toronto, is split three ways in Vancouver, between BCTV, CHEK and VTV. Another difference, according to Fitch, is that hockey and basketball do better in Toronto, not only because of the teams' relative performance the Maple Leafs and Raptors made their respective playoffs, unlike the woefully inept ALEX STRACHAN Sun Television CRITIC You like Oscar, Tony, Grammy, Regis and Barbara and don't try to deny it. Nielsen Media Research has the numbers to prove it, and an electronic system of measuring television audiences to back those numbers up. Nielsen's people-meter ratings over a recent three-month tired sitcom formula." The practice of airing the same show airs on different days and channels during a week is becoming more accepted, Beston says.

In the past, the audience fell off dramatically for the second airing, Beston said. "That's a big change right there." Beston attributes the difference to viewers' increasingly frenetic schedules. Instead of coming home to watch a specific show, they are turning the TV on if and when they get the chance, then surfing for something to watch. Beston believes that's one reason specialty channels do well here people with specific interests know that if they focus on one specialty channel that caters to their interests, they stand a better chance of finding period show that viewers in the Vancouver and Victoria Canucks and Grizzlies but because of the different time zones. In Toronto, hockey and basketball games are televised in the early evening or late at night; in Vancouver, area favoured the Academy Awards more than any other single broadcast this year, with 789,000 adults 18 or older tuning in for at least part of the four-hour marathon on March 26, followed in short order by Barbara Walters' Academy Awards special Wild swings in viewership make newscasts, game shows and syndicated programs attractive to advertisers.

something they want to watch. Also, Beston says, the conventional stations don't help their cause by moving shows around so much. "Even as a buyer, you can't keep on top of it, let alone as a plain old viewer." (336,000 viewers), January's Super Bowl BCTV's nightly News Hour with Tony Parsons (304,000 on average), the Regis Philbin-hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (284,000 on average) and February's Grammy Awards Another distinguishing characteristic of the Vancouver market, according to Fitch, is the difference in audience for fresh, first-run episodes of shows and reruns, especially for high-profile series like Friends and The X-Files. "The most frustrating thing in this market is the fact that top-end shows are extremely volatile," Fitch said. A week-to-week comparison of Friends, for example, reveals that the Vancouver audience fluctuated wildly over a four-week period in March and April, from 190,000 on March 16 to 212,000 on March 23, down almost half to 124,000 on March 30 and 139,000 on April 6.

"I would lay any money that those last two were repeat weeks," Fitch said. The X-Files, which relies on surprise for dramatic effect, shows an even more dramatic fluctuation from week to week. The March 12 episode drew 151,000 viewers. The following week, the audience dipped slightly, to 132,000, but the week after that the bottom fell out, dropping all the way to 50,000 viewers. Wild swings in audience from week to week make consistent performers like newscasts, game shows and, oddly enough, syndicated reruns of old TV shows, more attractive to some advertisers because they can count on reaching the same audience, week in and week out.

If nothing else, this volatility proves that viewers in Vancouver are extremely selective about what they watch. The story the numbers don't tell is that the Vancouver-Victoria viewing audience is one of the most complex and fickle in North America. Vancouver viewers are quick to pick up on new trends before they emerge, and just as quick to lose interest And while Vancouver viewers tune into the specialty services more than anywhere else in Canada, including Toronto, the majority 55 per cent continue to watch the area's half-dozen conventional TV stations: BCTV, CHEK-TV, CBUT (CBC), Global, VTV and KVOS. An analysis of Nielsen's electronically monitored people meters for programs that aired between Jan. 1 and April 30 of this year reveals some surprises the popularity of Nash Bridges, for example, and viewers' taste for all manner of awards shows, not just the Oscars.

The electronic readings also confirm what media analysts and ad buyers have long suspected: TV audiences, while substantial in some cases, are not nearly as large as broadcasters claimed as recently as three years ago, when the only way of measuring audiences was the antiquated system of handwritten surveys in which selected groups of viewers kept diaries of what they watched in any given week. Vancouver and Toronto are currently the only two cities in Canada using electronic people meters for measuring audiences. Bill Fitch, vice-president and media director for the Vancouver office of the national ad-buying firm Genesis Media, most out-of-town games are televised in the late afternoon, when the potential viewing audience is smaller. In Toronto, a hockey telecast is an event people plan their evening around, and sports bars are packed for most games. In Vancouver, Fitch says, a televised hockey game is merely the preamble to doing something else that evening.

For Maureen Beston, Vancouver media manager of the advertising firm OMD-Canada (an amalgamation of Palmer Jarvis Advertising and BBDO-Canada), the ratings underscore her theory that the West Coast's outdoor lifestyle, cultural diversity and wide range of interests and recreational pursuits makes viewers' habits hard to pin dowa That may also explain why Vancouver viewers are quick to pick up new trends. Viewers here were among the first to latch onto Ally McBeal, Beston notes and may be among the first to give up now that the show is turning into a parody of itself. Similarly, local viewers have long favoured Law Order, which this year recorded in the U.S. the highest ratings of its 10-year existence. "The quirky comedy is a little more mainstream here, and a little more fringe there in Toronto," Beston said.

"People are bored with cookie-cutter sitcoms. But if you take a look at what is evolving, the shows people are talking about here, like Sex and the City and Will Grace, you'll find that they're about giving us something new, not the same old Station by station I CBC TOP PROGRAM: Anne Murray. What a Wonderful World (Feb. 27), 202,000 viewers. TOP SERIES: Da Vinci's Inquest, 111 flOO viewers.

ODDITY: In what may be a picture of the CBC to come, the most popular shows on the main network are concerts and arts performances (Murray, Shania Twain, Cirque du Soleil, Kurt Browning, etc) and sports (Hockey Night in Canada, Labatt Brier curling). The oft-maligned public broadcaster has proved there is a smalL vocal Top 20 Canadian Programs Vancouver-Victoria Adults 18 News Hour BCTVCHEK 314,000 Anne Murray What a Wonderful World (Feb. 27) CBC. 202,000 Anneof Green Gables 3 (March 6) CBC 201,000 Canada Tonight BCTV 1 57,000 OVNews with Uoyd Robertson BCTV. 133,000 Vancouver Canucks hockey VTV 129,000 Variety dub Show of Hearts (Feb.19) BCTV 123,000 Hockey Night In Canada (late game) CBC 121 ,000 Kurt Browning: Remember This (Feb.20) 121,000 Bank of Montreal Skating Chmps.

(Jan.30) BCTV1 15,000 Da Vinci's Inquest CBC 111,000 Labatt Brier curling (March 12) CBC 108,000 IVayn Siuster T7i first 100 reors (April 9) CBC 105,000 The National CBC 91,000 Royal Canadian Air Farce CBC 91 ,000 NHL All-Star Game (Feb.6) CBC 87,000 Cirque du Soleil: Quidam (April 2) 79,000 Shanla Twain: Come On Over Uan23) CBC 76,000 This Hour Has 22 Minutes CBC 75,000 the fifth estate CBC 75,000 Top 20 Programs -v-oria Adults 18 Academy Awards (March 26) BCTVCHEK 789,000 Barbara Walters Special (March 26) BCTVCHEK. 336,000 News Hour BCTVCHEK 314,000 Super Bowl XXXIV (Jan.30) Global 31 0,000 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Mon.) VTV. 284,000 Grammy Awards (Feb.23) BCTVCHEK 281,000 Golden Globe Awards (Jaru23) BCTVCHEK 265,000 Academy Awards preview BCTV 241,000 ER BCTVCHEK 241,000 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire flue.) VTV 230,000 Wheel of Fortune BCTV 206,000 Jeopardy! BCTV 205.000 Ally McBeal BCTV 204,000 Annt Murrey: What a Wonderful World (Feb. 27) CBC. 202,000 Anne of Green Gables 3 (March 6) CBC 201,000 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (WedJ VTV 197,000 World Figure Skating Oimps.

(March 31) BCTVCHEK 195,000 Friends Global 187,000 Frasier Global 168,000 The West Wing BCTVCHEK 162,000 Anne Murray audience for Canadian programs, provided those programs are meaningful or entertaining. Local and regional CBC programs such as Hockey Talk (44,000 viewers), 77ie End In the Company of Women (10,000) and The 11th Hour (19,000) hold their SEE TELEVISION, El 5.