Both true.

Though it's also true that the NHL would have benefited more from a Stanley Cup tournament that either took place in the late spring and early summer. Or maybe by waiting until the fall. Neither of which may have been feasible, I realize. (Especially option 1.)

As it stands now they will be overshadowed by the NFL stateside whereas the Stanley Cup final usually takes places at a pretty good time in the U.S. in terms of what the NHL has to compete with.

And in Canada itself due to a variety of factors* I wouldn't be surprised if NFL ratings this early fall don't equal or even surpass some of the NHL ratings.

*No CFL so Canadian gridiron fans are all looking for a fix; NFL scheduling predictability vs. that of the NHL, etc.

With Canadian teams out, the NHL is set for the lowest Stanley Cup Final ratings in over a decade. Football will probably even wreak havoc on NBA ratings in the coming weeks.

I've decided to (try to) follow the Bills this year in absence of any CFL.

I say try to, because I've tried before to get into NFL and failed. Mostly because I have no connection to any of the teams, but I also find it a bit lacking compared to CFL football.

I got a DAZN subscription though, no idea if those views would count towards any TV rating? $20 a month which is the same as TSN, although all the rugby leagues have wrapped up so maybe I won't keep it. If they get the fall international 8 Nations that would be worth paying for.

Side note, I thought CTV was free? They wanted a Bell account login to let me watch the NFL game. Why lock me out online if I could, in theory, get it for free with an antenna?

I guess when you refer to Stanley Cup "Final" you mean the playoffs? Because Canadian teams have only made the final four times since 2000. And none have made it since 2011. So it's not as if Canada was making a big impact there of late.

Other than that, I think we're making the same point.

As an aside, I am not really into NCAA news so is their football going to be happening this fall? If not, then the NFL will make an even bigger killing in terms of TV ratings.

Yea, they do that. I guess their defense is that it costs them money to stream, so they'll only give it to people who have at least a basic package to a cable/satellite provider.

It's kind of annoying anyway as it's at least 1 minute behind the live event, and can be as long as 3 or 4 minutes behind. Not great if you're following the game on social media or something.

I'd recommend just getting a cheap indoor antenna with a VHF element - that's what I do.

Canadian teams have only made the finals four times... in June. I meant that a Canadian team would'be been more resilient to a ratings hit in the current climate. A Texas/Florida matchup would be less than desirable in normal times. In September it's a death sentence.

I've looked into that before but didn't get very far - any recommendations?

Oh, a Canadian team in the final this year would have been great for ratings. In Canada and probably even overall in terms of eyeballs watching it.

With this context and timing I don't think even a large U.S. market in the Stanley Cup final would lead to more total viewers than, say, the Vancouver Canucks being it. And let's not even mention Montreal or Toronto...

Imagine thinking the intertwining of social justice causes and sports is happening "so much now" as if it hasn't always been there. Sports have always been political. If you're just noticing it now, you haven't been paying attention.

http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/...ietname_01.jpg

Right up my alley. First, if possible, use an outdoor antenna for the best possible outcome. If that's not possible some indoor antenna and setups are better than others. If you have a house, installing in the attic is the best option, if you live in an apartment and are unable to install an antenna outside, the options are fewer. There are flat adaptor cables that will allow you to put an antenna cable under a window (or door) to allow the antenna to be outside. Or you can have an indoor antenna but you will be severely limiting your range.

Some antenna makers make outlandish claims of 150 mile reception and try to sell junk antennas. With an indoor antenna, you'll see some makers claim 60 miles, 20-30 miles may be more realistic.

This excellent YouTube channel will give you chapter and verse on what to buy and what not to buy.

Here are two recommendations
ClearStream 4Max VHF/UHF Indoor/Outdoor HD TV Antenna Review
Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro Indoor Amplified HD TV Antenna Review

If the second option is what best suits your circumstances make sure to get that exact model, other flat antennas are often junk.

I recommend watching both videos (beginning to end) as he will give information in both about what not to buy as well and other helpful hints.

^ Jealous of you guys in the GTA who can pull in dozens of channels with a coat hanger.

In Winnipeg it's basically CBC, Global, SRC (French) and a religious channel. If you have more specialized equipment I think you can pull in City and CTV. And if you have a rooftop antenna you can maybe pull in FOX from the US. That's it.

I can't imagine the quality of what you can pull off an antenna is close to what you can get with even a decent internet connection nowadays. What's the point?

TV Fool is a good site to enter your address and see what is available to you with an antenna setup. It is colour coded green, yellow, red and grey

Green - An indoor "set-top" antenna is probably sufficient to pick up these channels
Yellow - An attic-mounted antenna is probably needed to pick up channels at this level and above
Red - A roof-mounted antenna is probably needed to pick up channels at this level and above
Grey - These channels are very weak and will most likely require extreme measures to try and pick them up

ATSC 3.0 is suppose to make it easier to get all local channels with just an indoor antenna. My apartment faces south so I only can get CBC, which s fine for hockey. My Shaw Blue Curve service puts the hockey games 30 seconds behind the over the air broadcast, which I don’t like especially during playoffs. Strangely, I can stream games on the blue curve app, and the signal comes in 10 seconds faster than my blue curve cable box. The stream is 60fps, so it’s good quality.

Then you would be wrong. It is an uncompressed signal from the transmitter, unlike cable. It is a better signal. Digital signals are unlike old analog signals, an analog signal would give snowy or weak reception. Digital signals fall off a cliff, either you get them or you don't.

ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) is where things are going, you could be getting your Internet this way in the future.

If you lived in the US you could use this free and legal service. They encourage a five dollar monthly voluntary contribution (similar to Wikipedia, it is voluntary) After about a month of no interruption they will interrupt a broadcast every 15 minutes with a 10 second plea for contribution. If you contribute, no more interruptions. This can be circumvented by going to the guide whenever a show goes to a commercial.

Most people are spoiled and don't want to put up with this "first world inconvenience" but if you're poor enough or desperate enough it is a more than palatable solution.

Locast

Locast is a public service to Americans, providing local broadcast signals over the Internet in select cities. All you have to do is sign up online, provide your name and email address, and certify that you live in, and are logging on from, one of the select US cities (“Designated Market Area”). Then, you can select among local broadcasters and stream your favorite local station.

But since most of us don't live in the US...

So you're pulling 4k content off the airwaves? Something most people with 50 mb/s down could do fairly easily.

ATSC 3.0 is interesting, especially mobile applications.

Except one of them you're paying for, the other is "free".

I have been without "cable" much of my life which is ironic because most of my life has been about the business of TV. To get free TV (or content as I now see it) takes some work. Most people don't want to have to do that. Others are so young they don't know that OTA TV technology has existed for a hundred years and figure free TV is a scam. "Free TV" is made free (of charge) by being advertiser supported so nothing is free (technically)

4K OTA is coming and its free.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...p%20to%20120Hz.

Sadly it'll likely not be available in Canada. A lot of towers have be de-commissioned over the years.

It likely will be, even though there are no announced plans for it, that's usually the way this kind of technology works, you get dragged into it. HDTV technology was available long before it became mainstream, same as regular analog TV.

Modern analog TV was basically available in the UK in 1936, Canada only began to implement it in 1952. Technological change is much faster now, we will have ATSC 3 (or an equivalent) in the coming years.

Several places in the US have already made the conversion to ATSC 3.0, but Covid has obviously caused major delays to what was supposed to be a big year for implementation.

Wow, thanks for all the info guys! :cheers:

What a flashback seeing the old channel numbers! TVO on 28 was like half my childhood.

I don't really see them as competition or mutually exclusive services. Internet is now basically an essential service that is expanding into the traditional content delivery markets. I doubt anyone is installing said antenna system on their tv and saying "thank god now I can finally cancel my internet service!"

I agree with you to a point, but that brings us back to the original problem, can you get CTV or Global without paying an extra "cable" charge on top of your regular Internet access bill. Nope. But you can get them OTA for nothing.

Some of you may be interested in this. The creator is trying to do what I have been advocating for years, free and legal TV. He has created a list of freely and legally available channels that broadcast openly over the Internet. Though you won't receive many mainstream channels ie CTV, Global, ABC NBC, etc, you will get CBC, PBS, most news networks (not CNN) and a ton of other special interest channels ie Bein Sports Xtra. Don't dismiss it, there is a ton of good stuff here.

This describes accessing through Android devices, I do it through Kodi/Windows on a laptop connected to my TV.

He also talks about downloading a file to a USB stick, you can avoid that by downloading the file directly to your device and then linking to it.

Give it a try, you can always delete it if you don't find use for it. On some channels the quality is not the greatest, others it's very good, but it's free, man! You have nothing to lose but a little time to check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42SdKPHa0xo

^ IPTV is still too hobbyist-oriented. If someone can simplify it and sell a product that allows you to access it for a one-time cost, they can make a fortune.

There are products like Cipher-TV which attempt to do that, but it's still based on a monthly subscription model which sort of defeats the appeal of IPTV in the first place. I mean, it's a better deal than what the major telcos offer but it's still essentially the same product.

I will say, there is a surprising number of live news channels available via Youtube including SkyNews, France 24, NBC News, CBS News, DW and PolandIn among others, and CTV News Network is accessible via the CTV News App. So news channels are pretty readily available.

You can combine what I posted with OTA and pay nothing. What I posted is easy to do for someone willing to try. If someone follows soccer FreeSports and Bein Sports Xtra cover most of the leagues aside from EPL.

Yeah, fair enough. Maybe I should give it a try. I have to admit I was absolutely amazed by some of the airbnbs I stayed at in Europe with Android IPTV boxes... literally hundreds and hundreds of TV channels, including many international channels.

Of course there were only a relatively small number of interesting English channels available, but then even with my cable package I probably regularly watch no more than maybe a dozen channels anyway.

As someone whose sports viewing is mostly CFL and hockey related, I'd have to accept not having access to those things anymore, though...

Doesn't work well for hockey, but if you only watch Bombers games the TSN day pass at $5/day is worth it to me, that's what I did for Toronto Arrows games this year.

You can still stream a lot of hockey on CBC. You used to be able to access TSN with a Bell user/pass that you pay your "cable" bills with. If you don't have "cable" (depending on your morality) you could ask for a family member/friend's user/pass. I haven't checked that lately to see if it still works. I know Bell has an online option for subscribers (no extra charge) that allows external viewing. Many providers like Netflix/Amazon allow for legal sharing up to a certain number. My whole agenda is acquiring content legally and free but four people sharing a Netflix account is a very reasonable cost (and legal).

The problem for many of these boxes (often called Kodi boxes) was that they were carrying illegal copyrighted content. I've created my own setup where I have tons of free/legal content and have found a way to get just about everything if I need it. Some of the free content providers are getting more powerful everyday: TubiTV/Crackle/Xumo/Pluto TV and even the Internet Archive (accessed through Kodi) where I am watching the full series of MASH at the moment.

The other thing about free/legal content is that it stays. Illegal copyrighted material disappears, you don't want to constantly have to find new sources for your favourite channels.

As I posted above Locast is very interesting.

Can the networks track/count you as a viewer via OTA?

If not the legality is basically a technicality as you're contributing no more to their bottom line than anyone streaming online.

How do you think it worked before the Internet?

DAZN is not traditonal TV so figures are not captured in TV ratings. DAZN viewership figures and known to DAZN and DAZN only.

It's difficult enough finding streaming figures for our TV partners here in Canada let alone for international providers.

The Antenna Man's latest video with some good information about antennae, how they work and what names to avoid and what names to trust.

Doesn't really matter how they use to. I assume cable boxes make up the vast majority if not all of their sample size now. My question is if they're still accurately tracking people OTA.

Haha that was 55 years ago man and those guys still played and stood for the anthem

Stupidity is doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. ;)

And this just came out the NFL ratings for Sunday Night Football last night debuting a brand new $5 billion stadium in LA and featuring America's team the Dallas Cowboys saw ratings plunge 28% WOW! Imagine how bad the ratings will be without the Cowboys playing. Will be interesting to see what the Canadian ratings will be probably up due to no CFL. Middle America is fed up with the woke social justice victimhood mentality of the BLM movement in sports and is shunning the NFL and NBA in droves.

https://sportsnaut.com/2020/09/nfl-r...e-ratings-hit/

This thread isn't about American ratings so i'll keep it short:

Have you ever stopped to consider that perhaps NBA and NFL ratings are both down because they're going head-to-head not only between each other but also with other sports during critical periods in their seasons?

"Thursday’s Texans-Chiefs NFL Kickoff Game averaged an 11.2 rating and 20.54 million viewers on NBC, down 13% in ratings and 7% in viewership from Packers-Bears last year (12.8, 22.03M) but flat and up 8% respectively from Falcons-Eagles in 2018 (11.2, 18.98M).

...

Due to the upheaval in the sporting calendar this year, the Kickoff Game faced unusual competition from an NBA playoff game involving LeBron James and from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It also faced a Serena Williams US Open semifinal, albeit for the third straight year (and fourth of the past five). Those events combined for 4.83 million viewers (2.50 for the NBA, 1.55 for tennis and 790,000 for the NHL)."

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/202...n-competition/

PGA, UFC and Boxing ratings are either up or flat and MLB and NHL ratings are steady compared to pre pandemic. NFL had the same issue 3-4 years ago during the first Kaepernick BLM kneeling during the anthem issue the NFL saw significant ratings drop they rebounded after it faded from memory and wasn't done as much in 2018 and 2019 now it has been kicked up again 10 fold and you see the ratings collapse especially with more people home and less entertainment options due to the pandemic. If there are almost 8 million less people watching SNF on NBC last night with the freaking Cowboys and LA rams in primetime you are putting your head in the sand ignoring that the social justice stuff and politics being jammed down fans throats day after day is turning a large portion of these leagues fan bases off.

I guess the NBA and NFL will be folding soon.

Yup XFL 3.0 bought by the Rock will take over.

That's crazy talk, they are getting record breaking ratings now.

I love how the conclusion after the single most disruptive year for sports since World War 2 is that it must be the 2-minute pre game social justice routine that is responsible!

The NBA has been and will continue to take market share from the other two incumbents. The fastest growing league is also probably the most progressive. Who would've thought that not pandering to an aging cohort is a pretty good growth strategy?

Everything the Rock touches is gold but I think unfortunately he will fail on this one. I just don't think Americans will accept the lesser XFL league. They haven't before and won't in the future. The NFL and NCAA will continue to be the only leagues in the US.

He was literally arrested and stripped of his titles. Not standing for the anthem is peanuts compared to that. I also don't think less viewership now is any indication of long term trends when we're in the middle of an economic catastrophe and millions of people are having to make decisions on how & where to spend their money.

The NBA’s TV Ratings Are Going Down. Why?
Carl Caminetti InsideHook August 25, 2020
Ethan Strauss of The Athletic recently shared his thoughts on the matter with Slate

...

Last week in a piece on The Athletic, Ethan Strauss reported that the ratings for network NBA broadcasts have declined by 45 percent since 2011–12, with games on TNT down about 40 percent and games on ESPN down about 20 percent. While there were some expectations ratings would increase for the NBA’s bubble games with sports fans starved for content, that apparently has not been the case.

While there are likely multiple factors which are contributing to the continued drop — cord-cutting, fans watching on illegal streams, the rise of Netflix and other sources of entertainment — one of the reasons the NBA’s ratings are down could be the league’s ties to China and the stance that its players, coaches and broadcasters have taken on social justice issues.

Knowing how some Americans are, it's not outside the realm of possibility that some of them might become a bit more cool to certain pro sports leagues if there is a perception that those leagues' patriotic loyalty to the country is faltering.

It no doubt happens in isolated instances, but the wider trends show the bigger picture of where the growth lies, and it's not with the anti-Kaepernick demographic.

100% true. When you consider that there are probably tens of millions of hardcore Trump fans, it's not out of the realm of possibility that some might get turned off pro sports in sufficient numbers to affect ratings.