Amid Trump Drama, US Late-Night Shows Top Canada’s Most-Watched Shows List

Editor’s Note: Veteran TV journalist Bill Brioux is LateNighter’s Canadian bureau chief. (Okay, he’s the entirety of our Canadian bureau.)

Say what you will about the fractured relations between the US and Canadian governments: Canadians aren’t holding it against American-made late-night shows. In fact, relatively speaking, US late-night shows are more popular north of the border than they are in the States.  

That’s according to a recent report from Parrot Analytics, which found that The Daily Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver were among the Top 10 most-watched shows in Canada.

The number one show on that list? A series created 50 years ago by Canadian-born Lorne Michaels, Saturday Night Live.

Skeptical? It’s hard not to be, considering that late-night shows rarely appear on similar lists issued stateside. There are, however, some compelling anecdotal and even data-driven indicators suggesting that Parrot may deserve, at the very least, a cracker.

Traditionally, many Canadian viewers are news junkies. We also like comedy and even, yes, breed comedians. I haven’t done a survey, but I’m guessing that seeing Mike Myers sneak secret coded messages at the end of Saturday Night Live this season spiked sales in Canada of poutine and ketchup chips.

We needed to know Austin Powers had our back these last six months. Try as we might, it has been impossible to ignore Donald Trump’s threats to our very sovereignty and all of his “51st State” blatherings. His antics have actually unified Canadians and even helped elect a new federal government under a “Canada is Not for Sale” banner.

Therefore, when Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Bill Maher, John Oliver and others mock the Trump talk, we can’t get enough of it.

But let’s start with the Saturday Night Live at No. 1 claim. According to trends and decades of data, that declaration could very well be valid. Parrot Analytics calculates its Top 10 lists using something they call “Demand Expression.” This data is meant to indicate how in-demand a series is compared with other TV shows—whether linear, pay TV, SVOD and AVOD—in the same market.

According to overnight estimates, SNL’s May 17 season finale, simulcast on Global and NBC, was seen by an estimated overnight audience of 737,000 viewers. That estimate is better than almost any other scripted, prime time series that aired that week in Canada. Tally up all the streams on Global owner Corus Entertainment’s StackTV and on other digital platforms and it has to rank near the overall top (hockey playoffs excepted).

Saturday Night Live has been an important tentpole at Global for all 50 years. Corus co-CEO Troy Reeb says SNL has always drawn interest in Canada thanks to local heroes like Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, and Norm Macdonald.

In the past two decades, he adds, it has moved beyond being a “cult phenomena” to a cultural hit.  “It is the number one scripted show online,” says Reeb, “especially in the demo. That says a lot about the power of a show that is live.”

As for the nightly talk shows, it is reasonable to assume that Canadians are responding more than ever to the opening monologues from Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon.

Parrot’s findings, however, that The Daily Show (ranked at No. 4), Fallon’s Tonight Show (No. 6), and Oliver’s Last Week Tonight (No. 10) are all Top 10 northern obsessions should probably be taken with a grain of salt, if not an asterisk.

The late-night talk shows all air in Canada, but their popularity is measured as “simulcasts.” For example, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live airs in Canada on Citytv. The US signal is blended with the Canadian one, with Canadian commercials substituted. The cumulative tally all tilts to City.

Consider as well that the Canadian media landscape is not the level playing field found among the Big Four US broadcasters. City’s reach, for example, extends only across about half as many regional affiliate stations as CTV and Global. Despite this disadvantage, Kimmel’s show in Canada draws about as many viewers each weeknight as Colbert’s wider reach on Global. Why? Every night, Jimmy calls Trump nicknames such as “Fiberace,” ‘Phony Soprano” and “Teddy Dozevelt,” Canadians like that.

The other oddity in Canada is that Meyers, despite being simulcast an hour later than Kimmel, Fallon and Colbert, benefits from following late local newscasts on the stronger Canadian network, CTV. His closer looks at Trump play well to CTV’s bigger room.

For example, during the heat of the Canadian Federal Election campaign on Thursday, May. 13, Meyers at 12:34 a.m. (188,000 in overnight estimates among viewers 2+) outperformed 11:35 pm starts Kimmel on City (174,000), and Colbert on Global (116,000) with Fallon well back on CTV2 (69,000).

The fact that Meyers, Kimmel and Colbert all open their shows with an elbow to Trump’s orange noggin goes down in Canada like a Tim Horton’s doughnut (not donut!) dunked in a double-double. Fallon is hampered by being simulcast on a weaker network and by his generally elbow-less, hair-tousling approach to the commander-in-chief.

This would seem to call into question Parrot’s suggestion that Fallon’s Tonight Show is the 6th most in demand series in Canada. Most nights, ratings-wise, it is at best the fourth most-watched late night show north of the border.

The Daily Show, which Parrot lists at No. 4 in Canada, used to be simulcast in Canada on CTV and the specialty network CTV Comedy but was dropped in 2024 by Bell Media. Canadians can only stream it now on Paramount+. Nevertheless, a lot of us did last January 13 when Liberal Party candidate Mark Carney appeared as Jon Stewart’s guest and, stealthily and successfully, launched his campaign to become Canada’s Prime Minister.

If we didn’t see it on Paramount, a lot of Canadians were likely among the 6.5 million viewers so far who watched the exchange on The Daily Show’s YouTube channel.

As for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, it is carried in Canada not by HBO Max, which doesn’t exactly cross the border, but on the Bell Media-owned Canadian streaming service Crave.

Canadians are also among the 8.97 million subscribers to the series on YouTube.

Parrot’s Top 10 in Canada list also includes such shows as The Last of Us, Andor and Grey’s Anatomy, but—alarmingly, if you are a Canadian writer, showrunner or producer—not a single homegrown Canadian series made the cut. It’s been more than two decades since Mike Bullard; Maybe it’s time a Canadian broadcaster considered launching a new late-night entry of its own?

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