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Despite carefully chosen words, the CBC and the Canadian Olympic Committee are on the mat and grappling fiercely over which side will be allowed to launch an amateur sports channel.
The COC was furious when the CBC, after initially supporting the COC bid for a channel, went ahead and applied for one of its own.
The Olympic committee also was irked that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission chose to hear the CBC application first, next month.
The COC responded by asking that the two applications be heard at the same time. The CRTC has yet to reply.
What's important to know is that the two bids are significantly different.
The proposed CBC channel, CBC SportsPlus, is not really an amateur sports channel at all. Amateur content will make up only 25 of the programming. The important selling feature is its 80-per-cent Canadian content.
Scott Moore, the head of CBC Sports, stresses the channel's Canadian content.
“Canada needs a sports network that tells Canadian stories,” he said. “Not the NFL, not Ultimate Fighting, not poker. Canadian athletes, professional, amateur and semi-pro, deserve exposure.”
The CBC channel would serve, in large measure, as an overflow destination for the main CBC network's sports properties. For example, games at a FIFA tournament that couldn't be carried on CBC Television would end up on SportsPlus. As well, the channel would help the CBC compete with CTV-TSN for future Olympic rights.
Because the CBC is seeking a category 2 licence, meaning discretionary or optional carriage by the cable and satellite companies, it is almost certain to receive approval. The channel is likely to launch as early as the fall of 2009.
The COC's application is more creative and ambitious. It proposes two channels, English and French-language. And it is asking for a category 1 licence, meaning mandatory carriage by the cable and satellite companies.
The problem is, the CRTC rarely hands out category 1 licences, which is probably why a date has yet to be set for a hearing.
Still, when the COC does appear before the CRTC, it will present a compelling argument. Programming would be 100-per-cent amateur sports. The channel would provide exposure to athletes, the best of whom are largely ignored in this country except for two weeks every two years during the Olympics.
University and aboriginal sports would be covered, as well competitions for the handicapped.
International events such as the Pan American Games and Commonwealth Games, which do not get air time on Canadian television, would receive extensive coverage.
The COC also will argue that its channel would help promote participation in sport and, therefore, improve physical fitness and health.
What makes it a tough sell is the category 1 designation, which would require every Canadian household that has digital television, about 7.5 million homes, to receive the service and pay for it.
Chris Rudge, the COC's chief executive officer, says surveys commissioned by the COC indicate Canadians are willing to support such a channel.
“The feedback we've received is that the public is very supportive of what we are doing,” he said. “Now, it's easy to say you're supportive when you don't have to step up to the table and pay anything at this point. But, in general, our feeling is the Canadian public approves of this.”
The fee paid by the consumer would be 60 cents a month, adding up to annual revenue of $54-million, an amount Rudge says would pay the bills, with money left over for the channel's investors and also to fund amateur athletes.
To put the $54-million into context, The Score's total expenses in 2007 were less than $25-million, while TSN's expenses were $155-million because it pays big dollars for most of the major sports properties. All things considered, a fee of 60 cents a month isn't much, given the potential benefits that the channel would provide for amateur sport.
That's why the CRTC should approve the COC's application as well as the CBC's.
- TSN and Rogers Sportsnet are averaging 242,000 viewers for their Euro 2008 telecasts, up 20 per cent from Euro 2004.
- Peter Loubardias, who has been calling junior hockey for Sportsnet, will take over as the network's Calgary Flames voice next season.
- Setanta Sports, the premium pay service specializing in soccer, increased subscriptions by 81 per cent from September of 2007, its first full month, to May. The number of subscribers was not available.
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