diff --git a/bin/pt-archiver b/bin/pt-archiver
index 7925fe622..30cd7367e 100755
--- a/bin/pt-archiver
+++ b/bin/pt-archiver
@@ -1995,7 +1995,7 @@ sub parse {
 
    my ($keys, $clustered_key) = $self->get_keys($ddl, $opts, \%is_nullable);
 
-   my ($charset) = $ddl =~ m/DEFAULT CHARSET=(\w+)/;
+   my ($charset) = $ddl =~ m/DEFAULT CHARSET\s*=\s*(\w+)/;
 
    return {
       name               => $name,