The 2010 Winter Olympics could be a programming disaster for CTV

D6

By Jeffrey Bento-Carrier

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The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing proved to be not only the most-watched games in history, it also gave a chance for two of its marquee broadcasters to show the world, yet again, why its reporters, and cameramen, are considered some of the best sports journalists on the planet.

However, it's too bad this year's un-official world title finals could be the last one our nation's taxpayer-financed channels show for a long time.

CBC-SRC, for those who haven't heard the news yet, will not be Canada's broadcaster for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

This contract has been awarded to CTV-TVA and its myriad of affiliated channels, including ATV, who will no doubt provide the same strong content it gave its viewers during the 1980s and 1990s when Canada's ‘other' Big Corp owned the rights to the Winter Olympics.

The only problem I have with CTV capturing the broadcast rights to what will be, in the minds of many Five Rings fans, the two greatest Olympics of all-time is that CTV's higher-ups will have to do some network show-juggling to make it all work from a financial standpoint.

If CTV plans to show all of Vancouver's events live, or live-to-tape, where do the fans of Lost, American Idol, the CSI franchise, and all its cult-fan-driven drama, soap opera and comedy devotees go to get their fix over those two-and-a-half weeks in early 2010 – especially when February is a sweeps month south-of-the border?

By the way, guess when the 2010 Olympics are scheduled for? You got it – Feb. 12 to 28!

Does CTV have a plan in place to give what the viewers who don't watch the Olympics want? Yes, CTV will sell a ton of ads for the games. However, they will also, albeit in-directly, lose revenue because the sweep month shows they rely on for the other 11 months of the year will not air at the time they should.

There's no way NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the CW will hold off from their big shows just because Canada's CTV will be going from dawn to well-past-dusk at Vancouver 2010.

Maybe CTV can rely on TSN to show some of the minor sports, but there's no way you can make up for the loss of four hours of primetime non-Olympic programming per evening – especially on ATV and some of its Ontario channels – by showing curling and speed skating on pay cable.

My solution? For those two weeks, CTV should offer an alternate feed of its main network.

Right now, CTV's dilemma is literally a Titanic-style situation – with still no rescue in sight.