Cup ratings low despite exciting finish

A thrilling overtime did not translate into huge Grey Cup ratings for the CBC. Edmonton’s 38- 35 victory over Montreal on Sunday attracted an average audience of 3,168,000. That’s 21 per cent below last year’s Toronto- B. C. game ( 4 million) and the lowest audience since Calgary beat Winnipeg in 2001. Another 568,000 watched the game on French- language RDS, bringing the total Canadian audience to 3.7 million. However, it was the fifth most- watched Grey Cup of the last decade and matched the ratings for this year’s Super Bowl on Global. The audience peaked at 3,765,000 between 9 and 9: 30 p. m. An average of 2.7 million viewers watched the pre- game show, game and post- game interviews. The largest audience for the Grey Cup came in 2002 when 4.4- million viewers tuned in to watch Montreal defeat Edmonton.