Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium


Established in 2007, Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium was a joint venture set up by Canadian media companies Bell Media and Rogers Media to produce the Canadian broadcasts of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, as well as the two corresponding Paralympic Games. Bell owned 80% of the joint venture, and Rogers owned 20%.
The consortium encompassed many of the properties owned by both companies, including Bell Media's CTV Television Network, TSN, RDS and RDS Info, and Rogers Media's Omni Television, Sportsnet, OLN, and the Rogers radio stations group. Several other broadcasters carried consortium coverage, including Noovo, and several channels owned by Asian Television Network. Finally, dedicated websites in English and French were set up to stream live coverage over the Internet to Canadian viewers. The consortium replaced CBC Sports, which had held the Canadian rights to all Olympics beginning with the 1996 games, although some cable rights had been sub-licensed to TSN / RDS beginning in 1998.
Rogers announced in September 2011 that it would withdraw from the consortium following London 2012, and therefore not participate in its bid for rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2016 Summer Olympics. The company cited scheduling conflicts and financial considerations for the decision. Bell Media then announced a new partnership with the CBC to bid for Canadian broadcasting rights of Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016. Broadcast details for the joint bid were never released. The joint Bell/CBC bid was considered the prohibitive favourite to win the rights when the International Olympic Committee accepted bids. However, the Bell/CBC bids were rejected by the IOC.
On August 1, 2012, CBC Sports announced that it had made a deal to broadcast the 2014 and 2016 Summer and Winter Olympics, replacing the Bell/Rogers group. However, in February 2013, CBC announced that both Sportsnet and TSN would sub-license broadcast rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Participating media outlets

Television

  • Primary coverage was carried on CTV and Noovo, known as V in 2010.
  • *As there is no full-time CTV affiliate in Newfoundland and Labrador, coverage was simulcast on Bell-owned CTV Two Atlantic, which is available on cable in Newfoundland. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, over-the-air station NTV carried only the opening and closing ceremonies, and coverage of the men's hockey gold medal game.
  • *Noovo's coverage was produced by RDS and mostly used that channel's talent, as V has no in-house production staff for news or sports. Similarly, most hosts for CTV's coverage came from TSN.
  • *Since Noovo has limited coverage outside Quebec, its coverage of the 2010 games was simulcast on the Cable Public Affairs Channel, which has mandatory carriage on all cable and satellite providers.
  • Secondary coverage aired primarily on TSN and Sportsnet, as well as RDS and RDS Info. Select TSN coverage was rebroadcast later on TSN2. OLN also provided full-event coverage of selected outdoor events.
  • Multilingual coverage on various Omni Television stations:
  • *Omni.1 only: Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Ukrainian
  • *Omni.2, Omni Edmonton, Omni Calgary, Omni British Columbia: Cantonese, Mandarin
  • *Omni BC only: Punjabi
  • Multilingual coverage on seven Asian Television Network channels:
  • *ATN Bangla
  • *ATN Gujarati
  • *ATN Channel
  • *ATN Alpha ETC Punjabi and ATN MH1
  • *ATN Jaya TV
  • *ATN ARY Digital
  • APTN provided coverage of the 2010 games in several native languages; including. In some cases the network was split, with commentary in two or three different languages on the East, West, and North feeds. It also aired some English and French coverage as an overflow channel. APTN did not participate in coverage for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

    Radio

  • English-language radio coverage aired over Rogers's Sportsnet Radio Network. Ten Rogers stations, namely "Sportsnet Radio", all-news or news/talk stations, as well as CISQ-FM Whistler, were listed as "official" Consortium stations and typically air most if not all coverage. Portions of the coverage aired on other Rogers Media radio stations, as well as several other stations in non-competing markets.
  • French-language radio coverage of the 2010 games was aired on Cogeco radio stations, primarily airing on CKAC Montreal. No similar coverage plans were announced for the 2012 games.

    Other affiliated outlets

  • Several other Bell Media-owned channels, such as CTV News Channel and Discovery Channel) provided ancillary coverage related to the games. CTV-owned music channel MuchMusic broadcast programming live from the Vancouver area throughout the 2010 games, including special editions of MuchOnDemand broadcast from Whistler.
  • The Globe and Mail, a national newspaper which was owned by CTVglobemedia at the time of the Vancouver games, was listed as part of the consortium and supplied content for its websites, however its sponsorship/coverage of the games is independent of the broadcast rights.

    History

Early coverage

CTV has previously broadcast the Summer Games in 1976 and 1992, and the Winter Games in 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1994.
The 1980 "Miracle on Ice" game was aired live on CTV in Canada, but not ABC in the United States. Thus, American viewers who resided in or near the Canada–US border and received the CTV signal could watch the game live, but the rest of the United States had to wait for a delayed rebroadcast.

Rights fees

In 1974, Johnny Esaw became vice-president of CTV Sports, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1990. He negotiated the host broadcasting rights to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. As the main host broadcaster for the 1988 Winter Olympics, the CTV television network paid $4.5 million for domestic rights to the 1988 Winter Olympics. Coverage for the 1988 Winter Games was panned by critics and viewers alike, especially compared to the well-received ABC coverage despite significant resources mobilized and 118 hours of live coverage. Esaw also brought the 1964 Winter Olympics to CTV.
Production of the broadcasting for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, which costs NOK 462 million, was the responsibility of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, with assistance from CTV and the European Broadcasting Union. NRK had 1,424 people working at the Olympics, while international broadcasters sent an additional 4,050 accredited broadcasting personnel. The transmission rights for the games were held by EBU in Europe, CBS in the United States, NHK in Japan, CTV in Canada, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, Nine Network in Australia, as well as other broadcasters in other countries. The total transmission rights price was 350 million United States dollars.

Commentators

For the 2010 Winter Olympics, coverage was as follows:

Television

Consortium coverage originated primarily from the Vancouver Convention Centre as well as Mountain Square in Whistler.
  • CTV: An average of 22 hours per day of coverage, focusing on the major events and highlights. Times varied on certain days depending on events in progress
  • *Olympic Morning: 3:00-9:00am PT, with Beverly Thomson, Jay Onrait, Seamus O'Regan, and Melissa Grelo
  • *Olympic Daytime: 9:00am–2:30pm PT, with James Duthie, Lisa LaFlamme, and Michael Landsberg
  • *Olympic Prime Time: 3:00-11:00pm PT, with Brian Williams and Jennifer Hedger
  • *Olympic Late Night: Midnight to 3:00am PT, no host
  • Noovo : Major events and highlights in French, averaging 16.5 hours per day, including a morning show simulcast from RDS
  • TSN and Rogers Sportsnet: Full-event coverage, averaging 18 hours per day on each channel
  • OLN: Full-event coverage of outdoor events, averaging 4.5 hours per day
  • RDS: Full-event coverage in French, averaging 21 hours per day
  • RIS: Full-event coverage in French, averaging 6 hours per day
  • Omni: Multilingual coverage, averaging up to 6 hours per day
  • ATN: Multilingual coverage, averaging 6.5 hours a day across seven channels
  • APTN: Coverage in English, French, and Aboriginal languages, averaging 13 hours a day
The television broadcast was filmed with 39 new Hitachi SK-HD1000 studio/field cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric including on-site technical support. The cameras were also used to broadcast the 2012 Summer Olympics. Following the games, portions of CTV's set were re-purposed by its Vancouver affiliate CIVT for its newscasts.