However, the past three weeks have been rather exciting. This week, an average of over 4.7 million viewers watched Edmonton lose to Carolina in the seventh round of the Stanley Cup Finals. Emotionally, it was a bummer, but the CBC can be happy with the results either way, as the finals have put the public broadcaster on top of the national ratings for three weeks in a row.

And while those Stanley Cup numbers were great, they still weren’t enough to beat February’s Academy Awards as the year’s most-watched program. Still, the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals is the year’s second most-watched program in Canada.

Hey, there’s more good news for the CBC. This week, for the first time all year, the network held two other top 10 programs, including a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean (#10) and an ultra-short, 10-minute Sunday newscast (#9) in the place of the regularly scheduled, hour-long CBC News: Sunday.

As for CTV, its Canadian Idol is looking less lively this year, sinking well below the two million average audiences of years past. Wisely, Idol has steered clear of the NHL juggernaut, but the moves haven't boosted the numbers. We'll see if this downward trend continues throughout the summer.

Here are top 20 programs in Canada for the week of June 19-25, 2006: