  RCMP officers bring the Grey Cup into the stadium after the Montreal Alouettes beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 28-27 to win the 97th Grey Cup in Calgary, Sunday November 29, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz |
TORONTO - A record TV audience watched the Saskatchewan Roughriders blow the Grey Cup.
Citing preliminary figures, TSN says a combined 6.1 million viewers on TSN and its sister French station RDS watched the Montreal Alouettes' 28-27 win Sunday night in Calgary.
More than 14 million Canadians, or nearly 43 per cent of the population, watched the game in whole or in part. And 8.35 million viewers were tuned into the two networks at 9:49 p.m. ET as Montreal kicker Damon Duval kicked the winning field-goal.
"What a way to end the season, an unbelievable game with more Canadians watching than ever before," CFL commission Mark Cohon said in a statement.
The previous Grey Cup record - at least since television metre measurement was introduced in 1989 - was the Montreal-Edmonton game in 2002 when CBC drew an average of 4.224 million. Combined with RDS, that figure was 5.2 million.
TSN's audience of 5.087 million is also a record for the network, surpassing the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship gold medal game that attracted 3.7 million viewers.
TSN, which took over showing the Grey Cup last season, said the 2009 championship game was the most-watched telecast on Canadian television this year, ahead of both the Oscars and Super Bowl, although the method of tracking viewership numbers was based on a different system (BBM Nielsen Media Research Mark II meters) prior to the end of August.
