Canada's top 20 shows: What The Great White North is watching

[Sal]

According to the National Post newspaper, here are the highest rated TV shows in Canada from last week among the ever popular 18-49 age group:


1. Survivor----------2,202,200 viewers
2. CSI----------------2,181,000 viewers
3. CSI: Miami-------2,151,600 viewers
4. The Apprentice------2,133,800 viewers
5. CSI: New York--2,133,600 viewers
6. Desperate Housewives---2,115,900 viewers, including myself.
7. Law & Order----1,940,000
8. Lost--------------1,888,000
9. Law & Order: SVU-----1,833,000
10. Without A Trace------1,816,000
11. Third Watch----1,792,000
12. Fear Factor-----1,779,000
13. ER----------------1,765,000
14. CSI---------------1,677,000
15. Cold Case-------1,667,000
16. Joey--------------1,627,000
17. Medical Investigation---1,600,000
18. CBC Saturday Movie: "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"---------------------------1,591,000
19. The Biggest Loser------1,580,000
20. Scrubs-----------1,561,000


Not many surprises, are there? One thing that Canadians are notorious for is that we love to watch American shows and these numbers prove it. Notice that despite the recent success of shows like "Trailer Park Boys" and "Corner Gas" there's not one homegrown Canadian series anywhere near the top 20, which must leave more than a few CBC employees feeling very nervous. I'm glad to see that the sudden and unexpected success of "Desperate Housewives" has made its way across the border and that's a good sign. Incidentally, if the totals seem rather small to you, that's because Canada has roughly 1/10th the population of the US, meaning that 1,000,000 viewers would be the same as about 10,000,000 American viewers. One more thing that I should note with great sadness is that only 2 sitcoms made the list compared to 4 (Yeccchhh!) reality series. Does that mean that the sitcom is really dying---or are we just smarter?