6 Million Viewers Elect CTV #1 in Election Coverage

CTV Ratings Alert - October 15, 2008

Canadians made CTV and its family of channels their broadcaster of choice for coverage of the 2008 Federal Election last night. Data from BBM Nielsen Media Research confirms that 6.07 million Canadians watched some part of CTV's election coverage last night, 9% more than CBC (5.56 million).* In all, 1.32 million viewers tuned in to coverage on CTV, 'A', CTV Newsnet, CP24 and MuchMusic**. On CTV, the four-hour Election 2008 special peaked at 1.5 million viewers between 11 and 11:30 p.m. ET as polls in British Columbia confirmed the Conservative minority government that CTV had projected at 9:47 p.m. ET.

In addition to the Election 2008 national special on CTV, additional coverage included local stories by CTV affiliates, four local broadcasts by 'A' News, Toronto's most-watched local coverage for A25-54 on CP24 and the youth-oriented Be Loud election special on MuchMusic. CTV and its channels broadcast from more than 60 locations across the country, from a moving streetcar in downtown Toronto to a Vancouver Island tavern to the headquarters of each party leader.

Meanwhile, it was a record day for CTV's online election coverage, with over 5 million page views and 729,000 visits to CTV.ca, more than double the average daily traffic. The live stream of Election 2008 on CTV.ca attracted nearly 50,000 views in only four hours.***

Helming CTV's coverage was Canada's most-watched news anchor, Lloyd Robertson, with Craig Oliver providing in-depth analysis and helping make sense of the real-time reports and breaking news for viewers.

Supplying their opinions as the election results rolled in on CTV were Brian Tobin, former Liberal Cabinet Minister and former Premier of Newfoundland; Sandra Buckler, former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Harper; and Anne McGrath, NDP Party President, as well as analysts Peter Donolo from The Strategic Counsel and Antonia Maioni from McGill University.

Lisa LaFlamme covered the key battleground ridings, while Tom Clark, Mike Duffy, Robert Fife, Graham Richardson, Roger Smith, Genevieve Beauchemin and Rosemary Thompson reported from the candidates' headquarters across the country.

CTV News is Canada's most-watched news organization both locally and nationally and has a network of national, international and local news operations including nine foreign and seven domestic network news bureaus. CTV News operations include CTV Newsnet, Report on Business Television and information programming, including CTV News with Lloyd Robertson, CTV News with Sandie Rinaldo, Canada AM, W-FIVE and Question Period. With a perspective that is distinctly Canadian, CTV News brings Canadians the international and domestic news stories of the day and is the number-one news organization in Canada.

Source: BBM Nielsen Media Research, preliminary overnight data

* Total Reach, 9 p.m.-1a.m.

**

Time Period Viewers 2+

CTV 9 p.m. -1:14 a.m. 1,054,000

'A' 9 p.m. -1:14 a.m. 97,000

CTV Newsnet 9 p.m. - 1 a.m. 86,000

CP24 8 p.m. -12 midnight 62,000

MuchMusic 10 p.m. - 11:30 p.m. 16,000

*** Source: HBX Analytics