TSN/CTV offers $1.4 billion for Hockey Night in Canada

It already happened on the French arm of CBC, Radio Canada. They had just as long a history with hockey. They gave it all up to the French-language TSN, which broadcasts every game.

So much for "cultural mandate" although I think, relatively speaking, they're still a much more viable and watched network than CBC.

For awhile, they were simulcasting the Saturday night games on both. Not sure if they still do that.

CBC stopped being relevant around my parts a long time ago, because they keep insisting on showing the Maple Laffs every single frickin' Saturday. Never the Canadiens. Even anglophone Habs fans started watching hockey in French a long time ago.

I did hear recently that they did schedule 17 Habs games this season. Guess they finally realized, about five years too late, that the Laffs are pretty unwatchable. I guess they felt they had to wait until Domi retired. ;D

 

CBC owns the rights to the NHL package. It licenses the HNIC name (and the theme song) from Molstar / Molson Breweries. Because Labatts is now the beer advertiser on HNIC, Molson insisted the Labatts couldn't have its name on the game telecasts. CBC created "Labatts Saturday Night," the pregame show, in part for that reason.
In the past, Molstar, and before it MacLaren Advertising, owned the HNIC package and leased the air time and production services from CBC (and for a time on CTV on Wednesday night), and sold the commercials itself to Imperial Oil and Molson.

 

Aha... JR, I thought you just knew about the secret Canadian government agency which plans to dump people like William Shatner and Celine Dion in the United States... but I think with the above post, it is obvious that YOU are part of the process... I think you just outed what you really do :?

 

CT, thanks for the clarification. I knew there was some funky deal involved in the HNIC rights.

 

this was brilliant pr manouevre by bellglobemedia, owners of ctv, the globeandmail (notice the connection) and, yes, the toronto maple leafs.

the $140 million has not been offered. its being floated. whoever gave that story to bill houston is well aware that when ctv/rogers bid $153 million for the 2010 and 2012 winter and summer olympics, it outbid cbc by more than $60 million. bellglobemedia wants the nhl package badly and is using its newspaper as a propaganda tool against the cbc. when cbcs major summer reality program -- the one -- was cancelled as a dismal failure, it put a picture of the host on its front page, celebrationg the cancellation, and opened yet another tiresome debate abouthow the cbc should not be battling private entities for sports packages.

gee, i wonder who that would benefit?

the brilliance of this move by the bellglobes is that it will infuriate those who believe that the cbc should be nothing but "cultural" programming -- as if hockey is not canadian culture. the $140 million figure will incite that side against retaining hockey. for a news organization, the cbc sure does a lousy job of getting its message out.

 

Sorry, patchs, there's no comparison between football on ABC and hockey on the CBC.

"Hockey Night in Canada" has been a national institution for more than 70 years. The first nationwide broadcast of a game took place in 1933 (Toronto vs Detroit), three years before the CBC and its first radio network were even formed. There is no program in the history of broadcasting that has had such a continuous relationship with a single network.

Between 1933 and the 1980s, when CTV and TSN began broadcasting games, the CBC was responsible for providing the majority of Canadians with their primary exposure to the NHL. This history should not be ignored or downplayed, especially since the CBC has continued to produce high-quality broadcasts that favourably compare with coverage of any sport by any network in the entire world.

Just as hockey as a Canadian cultural institution cannot be overstated, neither can the sport's relationship with the Mother Corp. The severance of that relationship would truly be a tragedy. As a rule, I'm not confident the NHL places any real value on heritage but I sincerely hope Gary Bettman or his string-pullers will recognize that the league and the CBC belong together.

 

I honestly don't care if TSN gets HNIC as long as they keep the Coaches Corner in the broadcast. Kick out Satellite Hotstove because that segment sucks. Let Don rant and make an ass out of himself!

I pick up Center Ice in the states every year, but I was a little pissed last season when OLN would broadcast CBC play-by-play coverage and then switch to the OLN clowns during the intermission. My cable provider would then blackout the coverage on Center Ice. It was weak.

The best coverage, if I could get it every time, is Rogers Sportsnet. The announcer who does Canucks game is pretty darn enteraining to listen to.

Also, Pierre McGuire can go to hell. Get that pompous freak off my TV!