CTV's newscast with Lisa LaFlamme among most-watched TV programs in Canada

Aug 17 2022, 7:53 pm

As veteran anchor Lisa LaFlamme exits CTV National News, she leaves behind a stellar track record for one of the most watched TV programs in Canada.

Numeris, a Canadian audience measurement organization, releases a weekly ranking of the top 30 TV programs across the country. This includes newscasts, scripted shows, and reality TV shows.

CTV National News is one of the few newscasts that has consistently made it onto the list every week, starting from January to the first week of August (which is the most recent report published by Numeris).

The latest ratings reveal the 11 pm newscast as the eighth-most watched program with an average minute audience (the average number of viewers, age 2+, watching the program during any given minute) of 886,000 people.

It’s ranked just below other CTV news broadcasts like CTV Evening News — which tops the list with over 1.2 million viewers — and CTV Evening News Weekend, which had a little over one million viewers.

Global National ranked 15th on the list and CBC National didn’t crack the top 30.

Earlier this week Canadians were met with the shocking announcement that LaFlamme had been ousted after 35 years at CTV.

LaFlamme shared the news in a video message on Twitter, and shortly after Bell Media shared a release of its own.

The media conglomerate says it made a “business decision” to move CTV National News and the role of chief news anchor in a “different direction.”

The national news program’s ratings have dropped slightly every month this year. Its viewership was consistently over one million from January to March, which dipped to about 900,000 in April, and then slightly above 800,000 from May to early August.

Numeris reports available on its site only go as far back as August 30, 2021.

Bell Media revealed that Omar Sachedina would replace LaFlamme at the national news desk on September 5, which wasn’t received well by many viewers.

Isabelle DoctoIsabelle Docto

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