Phil King on Big Bang’s three-year renewal with CTV
Canada’s most-viewed program,
The Big Bang Theory has been picked up for three more seasons, giving CTV
more opportunities to launch Canadian programming following the laugher’s 8 p.m.
Thursday night time slot. So far original airings of the program have brought
in an average audience of 4.4 million viewers for the fall of 2013.
The Big Bang Theory, which targets adults aged 18 to 54 most recently
kicked-off the new Dave
Foley-starring PR comedy Spun Out, which premiered following Big
Bang and is being brought back to the 8:30 p.m. slot for the final two
weeks of March. Spun Out‘s premiere brought in an average of 1.4 million
viewers for its debut and dropped to 802,000 the following night for its
regular time slot on Friday. On average, Bell Media representatives say that
shows following Big Bang keep 50% of its lead-in audience.
Phil King, president of programming
and sports at CTV, tells MiC that Big Bang‘s massive weekly
audience has enabled the Bell Media channel to host a string of Canadian
programming like Saving
Hope in the 9 p.m. slot and Motive at 10 p.m. that night because
of the large lead-in it gets from the CBS laugher. He adds that he would like
to use the time slot following Big Bang to launch other Canadian
programming in the years ahead, with rumours that its typical time slot pairing
Two and a Half Men might only get a half season next fall.
King adds that it isn’t often that
a channel gets a show with the reach of Big Bang across audience
segments, adding other examples typically fall in the reality segment.
“The show is clever without going
over the top with sexual innuendos like a lot of shows do these days, which
make it uncomfortable for parents to watch with their kids,” he says. “It is a
show that has a wide audience. People who were 10-years-old when the show
started are 17 now and almost entering the sales demo.”
by Val Maloney
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