CBC attacking Olympics and Amateur Sports

February 9, 200521 yr

Olympic loss could hit amateur sports coverage

WebPosted Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:28:18 EST

The Executive Vice President of CBC Television says the network is rethinking its commitment to amateur sports coverage in the wake of its loss of Olympic broadcast rights.

FROM FEB. 7, 2005: CTV wins 2010 and 2012 Olympic broadcast rights

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On Monday, the public broadcaster lost its bid to broadcast the 2010 and 2012 Olympics.

Speaking with The Early Edition's Paul Grant on Tuesday, CBC-TV Vice-President Richard Stursberg says losing the Games may lead to a change in direction at the network.

"I think that as far as amateur sports are concerned on the CBC, then, as I was saying earlier, our premise, our work had been based on the assumption that we were working as part of the Olympic movement," he says.

"But it turns out that we are going to have to think again about that, since the IOC itself has made it clear that it operates as more of a professional sports body than anything else."

Sport B.C. says it would be a major blow to amateur sports if CBC Television cut back its coverage of amateur events.

"The amateur sport community relies on the CBC to broadcast all of its events across the country, and it would be disastrous for amateur sport if in fact that coverage was curtailed in any way," says Sport B.C.'s Bill Hallett.

The CBC had bid $90 million US for the Olympic broadcast rights. But the public network was topped by a consortium of Bell Globemedia and Rogers Media, which will pay $153 million US.

Later Tuesday, the chair of CBC's board of directors expressed her disappointment with the IOC's decision in an email to the corporation's staff.

Carole Taylor said the CBC's bid emphasized the quality, talent and experience of the crew that has produced the corporation's Olympic programming since 1996, as well as CBC's committment to amateur sports in non-Olympic years.

"This decision was not about quality; it was about money."

with files from CBC Vancouver

http://www.cbc.ca/story/sports/national/20...vote050208.html

Let me get this right:

Canada's public broadcaster [who was hogging up the rights] lost the Olympics to Canada's leading private broadcaster. Since the CBC suits now don't have the Olympics every 2 years as an item to present to Ottawa as reason for more taxpayer dollars, they decide to whine and moan. They demonized CTV (held Olympic rights before CBC spent tax dollars recklessly to get them) along with their cable and radio partner Rogers (owns Blue Jays, Raptors, minor investment in Maple Leafs, and Rogers Centre) for being reckless big business. Then they go after the OIC and Amateur Sports in Canada for letting CTV/Rogers make the winning bid. They issue this threat that can only hurt the CBC, Canadians, and the youth of Canade who depend on the exposure for revenues to hold the events in the first place.

For Americans who don't understand how Canada works, this would be like PBS getting mad and threatening/demonizing NBC for taking the Olympics away. (FYI: PBS has never had the Olympics, only NBC, CBS, and ABC have)

This shows how sad the CBC has gotten and why Canadians have become so anti-American. The nation's largest broadcaster (owned and managed by the Canadian government) can easily shape public opinion, make threats against competitors, hand out punishments via the CRTC and monopolize. They just recently had to give into Fox News being carried on Canadian cable and satellite. By the illegal sales of American satellite in Canada, it appears that Canadians want more choice. The CBC (and the Canadian Government) however want to keep their iron fist on information.

Thank God for the Internet

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