SOURCES: CTV-Rogers likely to lose money on Vancouver Olympics

 Canada’s Olympic networks have fallen below sales projections and will probably lose money on the Vancouver Winter Games, industry sources said this week.

   The Olympic consortium consisting of CTV Inc. and Rogers Media set a sales revenue target of more than $200-million, but insiders say they’re well off that mark.

  “There is no way they can make money,” one advertising source said. “Especially if you include the displaced revenue of the U.S. shows that would normally be on CTV at that time.”

   With the Winter Olympics 57 days away, it is believed that the CTV-Rogers consortium is at about 65 to 70 per cent of its initial sales goal.

   A steep TV rights fee paid to the IOC coupled with the country’s economic woes have put CTV and Rogers in a potential losing position.

   One source pegged the amount of advertising revenue earned to this point at about $130-million.

   Keith Pelley, the head of the CTV-Rogers Olympic consortium, refused to comment on revenue earned, but said sales are going well.

  “First and foremost, it’s fun to be the underdog because they’ve been saying that (CTV-Rogers would have difficulty breaking even) for a long time,” he said in an interview.

  “We have two goals. One is to break even. And the second is to produce the Games at a level that has never been seen in Canada for any production.”

   CTV-Rogers paid a record $93-million (U.S.), about $100-million Canadian, for the broadcasting and digital rights to the Vancouver Games. Production costs for the multiple platforms that will provide a whopping 2,200 hours of TV coverage (plus another 2,200 hours of digital content) is budgeted at $50-million. In addition, sources estimate another $10-million has been spent on marketing and perhaps an additional $5-million set aside to fete sponsors.

  That adds up to costs totaling $165-million. Based on the estimated $130-million revenue figure to date, the CTV-Rogers consortium has less than two months to earn $35-million to push earnings to a break-even point.

  Pelley said interest from advertisers is increasing.

  “As momentum continues to build, we continue to get pro-activity in the marketplace,” he said.

  He said a domestic Olympics, regardless of hard times, has a powerful appeal to advertisers.

   “We are selling the biggest event in Canadian history. And independent studies show this will be the largest television audience in Canadian history.”

  Pelley said the consortium has signed up 102 sponsorship partners. Some advertisers have spent as little as $5,000 for advertising spots. Others, the gold brand sponsors, are in for over $15-million.

  Critical to the CTV-Rogers advertising strategy, Pelley said, are the multiple platforms that will include, along with the CTV main broadcast network, sports, news, music, ethnic and aboriginal channels, as well as the Internet, mobile devices and the Rogers radio network.

  “We can customize (ad packages) to a time zone, to a sport, to an ethnic group, to an income tax bracket, to a demographic,” he said.

  Sales expectations were dialed down after the world-wide economic meltdown a year ago.

  Said one source, “Given the circumstances they’re done a good job of taking in as much as they can.”

Toronto angle to Tiger Woods story

  When Toronto sports injury doctor Anthony Galea treated Tiger Woods, who was recovering from knee surgery a year ago, the story was largely ignored.

   Even when it was reported in October that Galea was being investigated for the importation and sale of unapproved drugs, the media didn’t twig to the Woods connection.

  But it raised a red flag for Bob Weeks, a Toronto journalist and editor of SCOREGolf Magazine.

  He wrote a piece about it on the SCOREGolf website, but, of course, that was long before the Woods car accident and parade of mistresses. And it was two months before Galea was formally charged.

  Bob forwarded his piece to one of the leading golf blogs in the United States, GeoffShackelford.com. But it wasn’t used, despite the fact Doug Barron had just become the first PGA Tour player to test positive for a banned substance.

  “In my mind, there was a definite chill factor going on here — no one wanted to bring up Tiger Woods and a possible banned substance because Tiger was known for shutting out media who cross him,” Weeks said.

  For example, CBS announcer Peter Kostis was given the deep freeze by Woods when he criticized his swing.

   But after the Woods scandal broke and once Galea was charged with criminal conspiracy, things changed. Weeks received a call last week from Don Van Natta, an investigative reporter with The New York Times, seeking help and asking if Weeks would work on the story from Toronto. Weeks, however, was tied up at the Canadian Olympic curling trials in Edmonton. He said he wouldn’t be available until Tuesday of this week.

  “By that time, he’d nailed the story and now the world is running with it,” Weeks said. “Apparently no one is fearing being shut out by Tiger any more.”

You judge the Olympic ads

This website was built by filmmaker Joseph Bat (blame for the spare design is mine). He has completed one film, Scarecrow, which is awaiting distribution, and has written several scripts. His website is here.

Joe felt the Olympic ads that he had seen were flat and somewhat uninspiring. So, he took some stock footage, added production music, and produced his own.

Before you see his work, take a look at this CTV clip that includes Olympic ad footage (it is preceded by a brief commercial). The clip below is a Wonder Bread Olympic commercial.

Here are Joe’s two ads:

Spot #1:

Spot #2:

The truth about hitting in the NHL

   Rogers Sportsnet’s Doug MacLean made a revealing point on Hockey Central this week, one that is never raised by other TV hockey analysts, probably because they just didn’t know.

  Amid all the hand-wringing concern about a crackdown on cheap shots — full chorus now — “taking the hitting out of the game,” MacLean, quoting NHL vice-president Colin Campbell, noted that there’s never been as much hitting in the NHL as there is today. It’s not even close.

   Campbell and his staff viewed some 1970s footage after which they concluded they’re likely to see more hitting in one shift today than in a full game from the 1970s. You’d reach the same conclusion if you watched some film from the 1960s. Not a great deal of hitting. But, you know, the game was entertaining and people loved it.

   That’s why it’s just hilarious to hear the NHL establishment fretting about what awful damage to hockey a ban on cheap shots or even fighting would do. The answer is it would do nothing to hurt the game. It would give the NHL some credibility.

   It’s also worth stating that if a professional sport needs to condone, even encourage fighting and cheap shots to survive, it doesn’t deserve to survive.

Journalism at Fan590: Here’s another example of the broadcast journalism employed at the Toronto all-sports station where Nelson Millman is general manager. This six-minute infomercial disguised as an interview was with Saul Korman, the Toronto clothier who has been advertising on the station for years. The “questions” were from that crack team of Don Landry and Gord Stellick. Examples of the hard hitting queries:

 Stellick: “What’s going on in men’s fashion right now?”

 Landry: “How long have you been at this location, 569 Danforth?”

 Stellick: “You drive a good bargain, whether you’re the consumer. You drive a good bargain as the seller . . . Nobody’s better connected.”

Yep. Riveting stuff.

Jim Kelley’s fight: We reported almost two months ago that John Shannon had replaced Jim Kelley as the semi-regular co-host of Bob McCown’s Fan590 afternoon drive. It’s worth pointing out that Kelley was not pushed out of his job. His departure was necessitated by illness. He has pancreatic cancer. It’s not terminal, but he’s in a fight. We wish him all the best.

Don Cherry found not guilty of bad behaviour

  An apology from Don Cherry for telling a Toronto radio reporter to “f-off” during a profanity laced tirade on Sunday is highly unlikely.

   Scott Moore, the head of CBC Sports, says Cherry is not to blame for the incident and in fact was incited by the reporter who was overly aggressive.

  “I think the apology should go the other way,” Moore said in an email.

   Moore went on CFRB radio in Toronto today at noon and stated the network is throwing its full support behind Cherry. Moreover, sources confirmed there will be no apology from the Hockey Night In Canada commentator.

   In another development, 680 News reporter Colin D’Mello, who attempted to interview Cherry on Sunday, may be suspended by the station.

  His main offence was posting Cherry’s expletive filled rant on Facebook and also Twittering it. The clip was picked up by The Globe and Mail and posted. You can also hear the clip on this website at the bottom of this piece. 

  D’Mello was attempting to get a reaction from Cherry regarding neurosurgeon Charles Tator’s assertion that Cherry has been a negative influence on the game by promoting fighting and the so-called “rock em, sock em” style of hockey. Tator’s concern is concussions in hockey.

   Cherry was at the Rogers Campus in downtown Toronto, where 680 News and the Fan590 are housed, to tape his full week of segments for the radio show, Grapeline, with Brian Williams.

   D’Mello, says Moore, was told twice that Cherry would not give him an interview regarding Tator’s comments. However, D’Mello persisted and confronted Cherry in a hallway at the Rogers Campus. That’s when Cherry blew up and started swearing at him.

  “This has caused an issue to Don’s reputation,” Moore said in an email. “Typical of Don, he doesn’t want the reporter chastised because we all make mistakes. But it would be like someone coming up to a reporter in the Globe newsroom and badgering him until he’s told to “F” off, and then finding out that the whole thing was recorded and posted in public.”

   Needless to say, this story has swung 180 degrees from this morning, when it appeared as though Cherry had bullied the reporter without provocation. Cherry certainly could have told him to get lost without the profanities. But, according to Moore, Cherry wasn’t aware the tape recorder was running. And Cherry certainly had cause to lose his patience with D’Mello.

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A record audience for curling; “journalism” at Fan590

  The men’s Olympic qualifying curling final produced a record for TSN. An average of 1.213 million viewers watched Kevin Martin  defeat Glenn Howard on Sunday afternoon.

  It was TSN’s best curling audience ever and it almost doubled viewership of 693,000 for the 2005 men’s Olympic qualifier. (All live sports audiences are way up this year because of the new, more accurate Portable People Meter system of measurement.)

   The men’s final wasn’t a great game. Martin was in control almost from the start. The women’s final on Saturday night, which was decided by the last rock, was a more interesting contest. But, in terms of audience numbers, it had competition from the CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada.

  Still, 832,000 viewers tuned in to watch Cheryl Bernard defeat Shannon Kleibrink. That audience was 49 per cent larger than the 2005 viewership for the 2005 women’s final.

   The curling telecasts were well produced. Some of the jargon used by analysts Linda Moore and Ray Turnbull would have slid over the head of the casual fan, and that’s something for TSN to keep in mind during the Olympic tournament when a great many casual fans will be tuned into curling.

  The production values were first-rate. The telestrator is always helpful. The rock count graphic gives us relevant information. And, of course, the miked competitors makes curling unique among all sports.

  The one thing that wasn’t shown during the men’s final, or I missed, was video of the alleged cheating incident earlier in the tournament by Martin’s lead, Ben Hebert, against Howard’s rink.

 More curling numbers: Men’s semi-final, Saturday afternoon, 843,000; women’s semi-final, Friday night, 729,000; men’s final pre-game show, 415,000; women’s pre-game, 406,000.

Weekend audiences

Hockey:

Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, 641,000.

Hockey Night game telecast, Washington Capitals-Toronto Maple Leafs, plus Carolina-Ottawa and Montreal-Atlanta, 1.758 million; 10 p.m. ET game, Minnesota-Vancouver, 818,000.

Regional hockey: Edmonton Oilers-St. Louis Blues, Friday, Sportsnet West, 136,000; Calgary Flames-Colorado Avalanche, Sunday, Sportsnet West, 229,000.

 Football:

 NFL 1 p.m. regionals, Sunday, CTV, 802,000.

 NFL 4 p.m. regionals, Sportsnet, 161,000; City-TV, 585,000.

 NFL Sunday night, Philadelphia Eagles-New York Giants, TSN, 566,000.

Soccer:

Bolton-Manchester City, Saturday morning, Sportsnet, 143,000.

Alpine skiing:

Women’s giant slalom, GMC Alpine Ski Series, Saturday, CBC, 114,000

Men’s Super G, Ski Series, Saturday, CBC, 188,000.

 Sliding sports:

World Cup bobsleigh/skeleton, Saturday, CBC, 153,000.

Journalism at Fan590

  The position filled at Rogers Sportsnet by Fan590 general manager Nelson Millman requires a strong understanding of journalism. It involves running the news operation and other studio productions such as Nick Kypreos’s interview a few weeks ago with the troubled hockey player Mike Danton.

   Is Millman, who continues to run the Fan590, up to the job at Sportsnet? We’ll see. He doesn’t have any experience in television, but that hardly makes him unique at Sportsnet. He reports to a vice-president, Dave Akande, whose background is in law, not TV.

   As for Millman’s knowledge of journalism, the guess here is he doesn’t have a clue, aside from what he knows about producing a quicky sportscast for radio. Consider the sort of journalism that Millman’s Fan590 produces:

  Last week, afternoon drive host Bob McCown conducted an “interview” lasting several minutes with Jordan Bitove, the president of Vision Co. It was about Molson Canadian Hockey House at the Vancouver Olympics, a joint project by Vision and Molson. (Purely by coincidence McCown’s radio show will be based at Molson house during the Games.)

   After Bitove waxed eloquent about the facility, McCown asked: “Can anybody go to Molson Hockey House?”

  “It’s for celebrities, athletes, entertainers, corporate partners and fans,” Bitove said. “It’s a place to party under one roof, created for the athletes and their families to hang out . . . The IOC is a partner and people want to have fun. . . .

  “This will be the biggest party in Vancouver with world-class entertainment  . . . It will be a place where people can get together and let their hair down.”

   After that promo came the kicker: “We have a VIP opportunity for the public to buy into.”

  Now, McCown could have asked the price of this “VIP opportunity” and perhaps even opined that, given this is an IOC branded enterprise, it will be expensive. Instead, Bob’s response was, “This sounds terrific. Are there tickets available?”

   Bitove, of course, knocked that one out of the park, providing a website address and promising a big announcement this week.

   We went to the website. The cheapest ticket is $450 a day. The most expensive? $8,500 for a gold pass to watch the gold medal hockey game at the House.

   Anyway, regardless of what admission to Molson house costs, the Bitove piece was nothing more than an infomercial dressed up as an interview. But was Millman able to tell?

What will the SI honour mean for Dan Shulman?

  Dan Shulman is in that rare position of being a media star abroad, but his work on ESPN largely unknown at home.

   He lives just north of Toronto where he says many of his friends and family don’t really know what he does.

  In the United States, however, he is among the leading play by play voices in sports television. Last Friday, his profile skyrocketed when Sports Illustrated selected him the top national announcer for the first decade of this century, beating out broadcast icons such as Al Michaels, Joe Buck and Jim Nantz.

   Shulman, who works for ESPN, said he was shocked by the selection.

   “I was called by my agent 10 minutes before it was posted online,” he said. “I had absolutely no idea.”

   ESPN isn’t available in Canada. And since it’s been eight years since Shulman worked for TSN and even longer on Toronto radio, his profile in this country has diminished.

   “Most of my friends and family have no idea what I do anymore,” he said. “Most of them either don’t have the Rogers NBA digital sports package, or can’t quite figure out how to find the games, or something like that.

 “I know my dad’s got it down pat. He watches every game, so he’s figured out how. I wish more of the stuff I did down there was visible here, because this is home.”

Shulman, teamed with the singular Dick Vitale, is ESPN’s lead college basketball voice and also calls NBA and baseball games for the network. He’s No.3 on the ESPN/ABC lineup of NBA announcers behind Mike Breen and Mike Tirico. He’s occasionally heard on the ABC doubleheader. On Jan. 31, he will fill in for Tirico.

   Like all lists, the SI broadcasting selections will stimulate debate. Picking Mary Carillo of tennis as the top game analyst was must plain wrong. And CBS’s Nantz gets snubbed somewhat. The Shulman choice was outside the box, because he works for a cable channel rather than a broadcast network. But as Ralph Mellanby, the veteran sports producer, said this weekend, he is the complete package. He has probably the best voice in U.S. sports television. He’s smart, likeable on and off the air, and always impeccably prepared.

   SI.com’s Richard Deitsch, who compiled the list, wrote, “While he might not have the same cachet as Al Michaels, Jim Nantz or Joe Buck, Shulman is the best national play-by-play announcer today. He is exceptional at multiple sports (NBA and MLB), and he and his baseball partner, Dave Campbell, form as splendid a duo as there is on radio. As ESPN’s lead announcer, Shulman has made Dick Vitale palatable (at times) and deserves an award for that alone. The guy is a pro’s pro.”

  Just what this selection does for Shulman’s career remains to be seen. He figures not much, and he says he isn’t looking for anything.

 “It’s very flattering,” he said. “I’m just honoured to be mentioned among the other guys who are on the list. I don’t think it really changes anything about me. I just keep doing the same thing I’m doing. Go to work, do the game and come home. It’s not in my nature to get too caught up in something like that. I’m incredibly flattered and honoured, but I don’t think it will have a tangible impact on my career that I can foresee anyway.”

  Shulman’s first job in broadcasting was in Barrie, Ont., with CKBB radio. He worked at Toronto’s Fan all-sports station in the early 1990s and then joined TSN. Choosing to continue living in Toronto, he commutes to his ESPN assignments, spending between 160 and 180 nights a year in hotel rooms.

   Shulman, 42, is in the third year of a five year deal with ESPN. It’s hard to believe there will not be competition for his services when his contract comes up for renewal. Still, he says he’s happy in his present position.

  “I’m beyond thrilled to be doing what I’m doing right now. I don’t look ahead too much. I try to just enjoy it.”

  SI’s choice as best broadcaster of the decade was Bob Costas, who works for HBO and MLB Network, but is mainly known as an NBC host and the network’s Olympic prime time anchor. Deitsch wrote, “There is no harder job in sports broadcasting than hosting an Olympic Games, a gig that requires equal parts geopolitical expert, historian, traffic cop and journalist.”

  In ranking Carillo the top game analyst in the business Deitsch describes her as “honest, thoughtful and always prepared . . . Carillo has excelled in a sport that far too often soft-pedals commentary because of the many conflicts of interests and relationships. She provides a reporter’s eye in the booth.”

  It’s another outside the box choice, but hardly inspired. Carillo’s work is superficial. She can be snarky, but there isn’t even much of that anymore. And she rarely conveys a smart, insightful analysis. The best analysts in tennis are the McEnroes, John and Patrick.

  Nantz is largely ignored by the list. He’s a bit of a softy, but his work in golf is fine, and he’s a serviceable announcer and host. The list gives him an honourable mention in college basketball play by play and as a studio host.