According to the ratings, 27 million Canadians – 80% of the nation’s population - tuned in to some part of the Olympic gold medal hockey game against the USA last weekend, and 16 million – about 50% of Canadians – watched it in its entirety. One more time: 80% of the country watched the televised game.

Back in the “last decade”, MTV saw a 17% increase in ratings for the 2009 VMAs, mostly due to Kanye West’s famous interruption. MTV also saw record traffic to their website just after the incident, which many people believe was in response to all the “WTF Kanye?!” comments on Twitter and Facebook, which led friends, fans and followers to want to know what they had just missed.

With all the hand-wringing about the death of the TV industry, we have to wonder: will live television save the industry? If once-in-a-lifetime moments and high-buzz content can draw this kind of attention to TV sets and computer screens, maybe (just maybe) there’s a business model in there that can work…