Super Sunday Sets Bar High

To a lot of Canadians, Super Sunday quickly became Sucky Sunday as the fortunes of their hockey heroes began to wane against the U.S.
But not everyone associated with the red maple leaf was down in the dumps about the final numbers produced by the dramatic game.
Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium reported today that an average audience of 10.6 million tuned in to the final preliminary-round contest at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. That made it the most-watched sports program on record in Canadian television history, surpassing the 10.3 million who witnessed the same two countries play for hockey gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.
More impressive numbers: The audience peaked at 13 million of the Canada-U.S. game, which was watched in part by nearly two-thirds of the country's population (21.5 million).  Some 9.48 million took in the game on CTV alone, surpassing the audience for the opening ceremony.
Needless to say, the broadcast consortium wants this story to keep building, even if the 5-3 loss to the U.S. made the road to hockey gold longer and much tougher. While many predicted a Canada-Russia matchup for the gold, that showdown is set to happen in Wednesday's quarter-finals now (assuming a win over Germany tomorrow).
In other words, another record-breaker may be just around the corner.
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NBC continues to report strong audiences for its Vancouver Games coverage, which has the network steadfast in its belief in tape-delaying and packaging a number of events in the evening. "Protect the prime-time show" is priority No. 1 for NBC Olympics boss Dick Ebersol.
""It's no secret: the prime-time show is the flagship" David Neal, the executive vice president of NBC Olympics, told Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch. "That show has to be protected. That show has to be compelling every night. That is the mother ship, and we have to maintain it as an attractive vehicle no matter what."

Which means, of course, that all the griping by American viewers is conveniently ignored — they're still watching, right? (you'll hear most of that beefing coming from the Pacific time zone, where NBC holds its Olympic coverage until 8 p.m. local time, meaning events shown live in the East are long over before they're aired on the west coast).

But in Deitch's column, Neal insists "we believe in what we are doing here. The amount of time and effort that we put into preparing for the Olympic Games surpasses anything that I've been around. We have the strength in our convictions. We believe in what we are doing. We believe in the way that we present the Olympic Games. And I think the ratings back us up."
And that, as they say, is the bottom line.
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American networks have traditionally been accused of being wildly pro-U.S. during their Olympic coverage. But Deitsch had this interesting thought about CTV's work in Vancouver.
"Canada's CTV, which most Olympic journalists are watching in Vancouver, presents events live (TSN and Rogers Sportsnet are also art of the Canadian Olympic broadcasting group)," he wrote. "Broadcasting its first Olympics in 22 years, CTV has done good work, though it is far more jingoistic than NBC, occasionally to the point of silliness."
Feel free to discuss among yourselves.