CBC renews Battle of the Blades
November 17, 2009 · 7 Comments
CBC executive Scott Moore today confirmed our earlier report that Battle of the Blades will return for a second season in 2010.
“It has been renewed,” Moore, the head of sports, marketing and sales for the network, said in an email message. “Easy call with those ratings.”
Blades, an eight-week series in which ex-hockey players teamed up with figure skating professionals to compete in a pairs competition, was a ratings and production success.
Dick Button will never be confused with Simon Cowell, but the 80-year-old Button emerged as a star, bringing wit and humour to the panel of judges.
The CBC consistently drew in the range of 1.6 million viewers for the Sunday night show, despite tough competition from CTV’s Amazing Race 15. About 40 per cent of the Blades audience was male, a surprisingly large segment given that the show was about figure skating.
For the Sunday final, won by Jamie Sale and Craig Simpson, the CBC drew 1.878 million viewers. Not only was the show up against Amazing Race, but also TSN’s New England Patriots-Indianapolis Colts showdown.
The Blades’ 1.878 million outdrew Hockey Night In Canada’s 7 p.m. ET game the previous night, which had 1.808 million for Calgary Flames-Toronto Maple Leafs.
The male viewership for Blades, 724,000, was larger than TSN’s audience of 621,000 for the Pats-Colts telecast.
The plan for next season is to bring back many of same female figure skaters, but use a new group of ex-hockey players.
Cable subscribers deserve better deal
Based on reports from the CRTC hearings in Ottawa this week, I get the sense the cable companies know that the regulatory commission will eventually capitulate and rule in favour of the broadcasters, which are demanding fees from the cable and satellite distributors to carry their programming — in the same way the cable channels are paid a fee by distributors for their programming.
Rogers Cable and the other distributors — Shaw, Bell TV, etc. — are fighting desperately against this and are refusing to make the change willingly. That’s because the cost of paying the broadcasters will be passed onto the consumer, and that will make the distributors the villains.
If the dirty job has to be done, Phil Lind, a top Rogers executive, said in so many words during the hearings, let the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission do it.
One TV executive said, off the record, that he expected the commission to give something to the broadcasters.
“Von Finckenstein (Konrad, the CRTC chairman) doesn’t want to preside over the death of conventional TV,” he said.
It doesn’t bother me that the broadcasters — CTV, CBC and Global — want a share of the money doled out to the cable channels by the distributors, which, by the way, earn enormous profits.
But the CRTC should protect the consumer by requiring the distributors to offer meaningful alternatives to their profitable system of theme channel packaging. For example, to subscribe to TSN on Bell TV, the consumer is required to also buy TSN2, The Score, the Speed Channel and several others.
There’s nothing wrong with TSN2, the Score or the others, if that’s what you want. But the consumer should have the option of saying yes or no.
Everything on the menu should be a la carte at a reasonable price. The a la carte option is available now, but not at a reasonable price.
The truth is, of the dozens of new digital channels that were launched a few years ago, 90 per cent don’t deserve a license. But the consumer is forced to buy them anyway. For example, if you want to subscribe to the National Geographic Channel on Bell TV, you are required to buy the Biography channel, Book Television, G4 Tech TV, Fox News, Court TV, Discovery Civilization and the I Channel – I for information.
With the exception of, perhaps, National Geographic, these are inferior channels – the I Channel, in particular, is a waste of satellite space — although Fox certainly has a strong wingnut constituency.
Make the market entirely free. Let the cable channels sink or swim on their own.
Crosby’s torch draws coverage
At least one Pittsburgh media outlet will cover Penguin star Sidney Crosby carrying the Olympic torch in Nova Scotia tomorrow. The TV station, WPXI, is planning to fly in a crew.
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While it is true ESPN carries substantially different programming most of the time.. the biggest impact would be the competing SportsCentres(ers)… since the re version fulfills cancon regulations it needs a big push to remain viable.. if er were to air simultaneously it would cut into any profits. But the good news is Hedger could finally retire that brown leather jacket.
The end result is we’re all going to pay more. Believe it or not, it’s time to consider going back to bunny ears or a tower attached to your roof. I moved to the country in 1992 and had only a 40′ tower, giving me the Toronto channels, until almost 2000 – at NO COST. Since then, I’ve been on Star Choice which offers a multitude of the same channels across Canada. I’ll miss the two PBS channels I now get and, sometimes, TVO and Saskatchewan’s public access station. At the same time, I’m almost looking forward to going back to those days when I paid absolutely nothing for television. In the days when I only received the Toronto stations, it took me only seconds to discover there was nothing on that night that I was interested in. After I subscribed to Star Choice, it took me up to five minutes to run up the dial to learn the same thing.
Roy Green
Everett, ON
The broadcasters are also benefiting from cable and sat distribution. Cable and sat allow broadcasters to insert their signal over the US channel that’s broadcasting the same program there by increasing the Canadian station’s viewers and their advertising market. Without this many Canadians might be watching US commercials.
Cable and sat also allow broadcasters to get away with not investing in new transmission technologies. Look at how slow they are updating digital (ATSC) transmitters outside Toronto. They quickly updated their towers in that market so carriers would have to substitute the original US high definiton with the Canadian networks’ HD feed. CBC is the only large network with a digital transmitter in Ottawa. Not great service for the country’s fourth largest metro area.
Meanwhile broadcasters are lobbying government so they can do away with traditional over the air broadcasting.
No, I’m not a fan of the carriers either but I’ve already said enough.
Here here. Have been saying this for years. I have no problem paying for CBC or CTV. But if I want them, I should be able to ONLY buy them. Not 20 other channels I never watch. Of course if they did this, all those channels without viewership would die, or they would have to massively raise their subscription fee. Which would be fine. As Bill says, let the market decide.
Too bad there is not a snow ball’s chance in hell of this happening in Kanukistan.
Tangentially as well, it would be nice if we Canadians were finally allowed the option to buy ESPN or ESPN2. Allowing it up here would not hurt TSN because they carry fundamentally different programming. No hockey or cfl or curling on ESPN. No NCAA on TSN. The few crossovers like golf and tennis could be worked out just like NFL is worked out when it’s available on a US channel here as well as on TSN or SNET.
Some day, some way, some how, sports fans across Canada ought to have the option of picking EXACTLY and ONLY the channels they desire – such as: TSN, TSN2, SNET*4, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN CLASSIC, BIG10, NHLNET, MLBNET, NFLNET, GOLFCH, TENNISCH, VERSUS, CBC, CTV, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC. 26 channels that I actually enjoy and would not mind paying for. But no, instead we viewers are subjected to the CRTC’s and the distributor’s “tiers” and/or “packages”. All of which do nothing but cost us, the consumer, money.
Grrr.
Anyone surprised that on day 1 of the hearings.. Rogers customers experience “technical difficulties” around the same time the Blades final was to air?