Anyway, last night, as I was doing the Google rounds for the TV, Eh? site, I came across an article that briefly mentioned Corner Gas's ratings. I decided not to post it because that information was already on the site, and the article in question was so egregiously ignorant otherwise that I would have had to go off on a non-Canadian TV tangent to mock it.
The headline was "Grey's conquers House." You can read it here, thanks to Google's cache. Yes, you can correct your mistakes, but Google always remembers. It starts:
The surgeons and interns from Seattle Grace Hospital have turned the tables on Dr. Gregory House, as CTV's drama Grey's Anatomy became the most-watched show in primetime last week, hitting nearly 2.8 million (2+) viewers compared to 1.6 million for House on Global.It marks a sharp contrast to premiere week last month, when House grabbed a series high 3.3 million viewers in its Tuesday 9 p.m. timeslot versus 2.5 million for Grey's, which airs Thursdays at 9 p.m.
For a brief moment, it made me question the Honorary Canadian designation for my favourite fictional doctor. Were Canadians getting tired of the uncanny similarities between House and themselves? Would I have to write something about Dr. McDreamy being secretly Canadian?
It also made me question why CTV and Global hadn't sent out their usual duelling media releases declaring that each had really won in the ratings, na na na na boo boo. Had CTV stopped the ratings pissing match? What would I read for entertainment now?
Turns out, Playback was doing CTV's pissing for them (eww, I already regret that inelegant metaphor). I quickly remembered what you'd think a reporter and editor with a magazine devoted only to the Canadian TV and film industry would know: House didn't air on FOX that week because of the baseball playoffs, so Global aired a rerun. A rerun of House got 1.6 million viewers, which should place it in or just barely out of the top 10 shows in Canada for that week.
I have to give them credit for correcting it, I guess, though that seems like a pretty low standard to hold them to. It's as if a sports reporter wrote an article trumpeting the win of the wrong team.
The corrected version, "Grey's number one," is saddled with a lead that isn't really news, now, given that Grey's is often number two in Canada, so if the number one is a rerun, well, duh:
The surgeons and interns from Seattle Grace Hospital were a popular choice on the dial last week, as CTV's drama Grey's Anatomy was the most-watched show in primetime, hitting nearly 2.8 million (2+) viewers. Grey's has the baseball playoffs to thank, since House, number one the previous week, was preempted by U.S. broadcaster Fox due to baseball pennant games, forcing Global to air a repeat episode. It nabbed 1.6 million viewers.It marks a sharp contrast to premiere week last month, when House grabbed a series high 3.3 million viewers in its Tuesday 9 p.m. timeslot versus 2.5 million for Grey's, which airs Thursdays at 9 p.m.
They've saddled this blog post with a point that isn't really news by correcting their article, except, for one thing, this blog isn't a news source, and for another, it's not the first time Playback has run an article where they clearly didn't realize they were comparing reruns to first-run shows. To be even pickier than I'm already being by posting this at all, they didn't quite correct it enough to give it a point. It's more newsworthy that Grey's beat the other frequent number two show, CSI. And it's hardly a "sharp contrast" to a week when both Grey's Anatomy and House aired new episodes.
Just like Whistler is Canada's version of The OC, only really, really not, and the Geminis are Canada's version of the Emmys, only really, really not, Playback is Canada's version of Variety, only really, really not.
"Settling for mediocrity" could sadly be a slogan for Canadian TV and film. I guess that's one way Canadians are very different from Dr. House.
