The Great Canadian Ratings Report: Don Cherry's return won't solve Rogers' NHL woes

It's official: Don Cherry's job is safe.

Not that anyone was expecting Rogers to further flirt with incurring the wrath of even hard-core hockey fans by sacking its most famous and bizarrely dressed employee. So Monday's announcement that the 82-year-old puck pontificator had received a new multi-year deal came as no surprise.

But to many other Rogers employees who toil on Hockey Night in Canada and on its other NHL broadcasts, the announcement could mean there will be less money to go around for them. And with rumours flying that there will be blood when many contracts end after the Stanley Cup finals, many won't be sleeping well.

Scott Moore, the man charged with trying to keep the Rogers NHL ship from hitting the rocks, said Monday that there will be ``tweaks" made to the product, which could mean anything from fewer bodies (likely) to new faces (unlikely) to more Cherry (possible given the fact that he and enabler Ron MacLean have been getting more camera time during the finals.)

But Moore knows that keeping Cherry aboard (though one wonders where else he could possibly go) and tweaking the lineup aren't going to right the ship. With the way ratings have gone this season that can only be accomplished by the revival of the NHL's Canadian franchises.

Without them in the playoff picture, spring has been pretty much a disaster for Rogers, at least in its first two years.

Ratings for this year's final series are down 18 per cent from last year and not likely to make up any ground as this is looking like it's going to be a short series. As bad as that may appear, it's worse when you consider that last season's ratings for the finals were down 12 per cent.

All told, audiences for the final have dropped 31 per cent since Rogers shelled out $5.2 billion for the NHL product. Since the Stanley Cup playoffs is where networks make their NHL profits, you can be pretty sure Rogers is suffering. And since it's highly unlikely Rogers promised advertisers almost one-third as many viewers, odds are its suffering is more pounding migraine than light headache.

The Pittsburgh-San Jose series is averaging 1.86 million viewers, which certainly isn't bad as far as Canadian sports ratings go (in fact, it's pretty darn good), but not what Rogers was hoping for when it opened its vault and let Gary Bettman in. Game 4 on Monday averaged 1.83 million, actually below average, which isn't what you'd expect as you get deeper into the series -- especially when the only sports competition that night was a Toronto Blue Jays blowout loss.

The biggest reason for the drop is the absence of Canadian teams. Ratings for the first two rounds this year were off 61 per cent from last year, when five Canadian teams were involved.

Probably of greater concern to the NHL is the fact that audience numbers are well off south of the border, without the excuse of no American involvement.

Saturday night's game was 34 per cent below what last year's Chicago-Tampa Bay Game 3 attracted, with audiences dropping with each game.

But while Rogers is bemoaning the performance of its hockey product, it is celebrating the success of its baseball team. The Blue Jays weekend series in Boston topped 1 million viewers each game, an amazing accomplishment for this early in the season.

Here are the most-watched sports events on English-language television from the past weekend, according to Numeris overnight ratings.

1. NHL, Penguins at Sharks, Saturday, CBC: 2,100,000

2. MLB, Blue Jays at Red Sox, Friday, Sportsnet: 1,310,000

3. MLB, Blue Jays at Red Sox, Sunday, Sportsnet: 1,090,000

4. MLB, Blue Jays at Red Sox, Saturday, Sportsnet: 1,080,000

5. NBA, Cavaliers at Warriors, Sunday, TSN: 573,000 (ABC audience not measured)

6. Tennis, French Open men's final, Sunday, TSN: 239,000 (NBC audience not measured)

7. PGA, Memorial final round, Sunday, Global: 218,000

8. MLB, Braves at Dodgers, Sunday, Sportsnet: 204,000

9. PGA, Memorial third round, Saturday, Global: 171,000

10. Athletics, Diamond League Birmingham, Sunday, CBC: 160,000

11. Mixed martial arts, UFC 199 preliminaries, Saturday, TSN: 155,000

12. Tennis, French Open women's final/men's doubles final, Saturday, TSN: 113,000 (NBC audience not measured)

13. Women's soccer, Canada vs. Brazil, Saturday, TSN: 106,000

14. Athletics, Diamond League Rome, Saturday, CBC: 104,000

THREE TO WATCH

Kicking it, Euro style:  Euro 2016 will also scratch the itch of fans of the other football game as Europe's national squads kick it around France. The tournament opens Friday with the host team going up against Romania (2:45 p.m. ET, TSN.)

Kicking it, Canadian style: CFL pre-season games aren't exactly works of art -- too many players, too many guys you'll never see again, too many rouges -- but they certainly scratch the itch of fans yearning for three-down football after seven-month absence. The B.C. Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders crack heads Saturday (9 p.m. ET, TSN.)

Revving it, Canadian style: The Formula One travelling circus returns to Montreal with this year's Canadian Grand Prix promising plenty of thrills and even a few spills. Briton Lewis Hamilton isn't having one of his best years, but since he's won this event four times he has to be considered one of the favourites. Sunday (1:55 p.m. ET, TSN3.)