The National Hockey League season is over, but an important question about its television coverage remains unanswered.
Will the longest tenured play-by-play team in Canadian broadcasting, the CBC's Bob Cole and Harry Neale, return to the Hockey Night in Canada booth next season?
It's too early for a CBC announcement, but you can anticipate one of two decisions: Either the network will thank Cole, 74, and Neale, 70, for their long and estimable contribution to the show and say goodbye. And Jim Hughson will be offered Cole's spot as the No. 1 play-by-play caller, and the CBC will look for additional announcing and analytical talent.
Or Cole and Neale will both be given another one-year contract, with perhaps a reduced workload and the understanding they will retire at the end of 2007-08.
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Stay tuned.
Fans tuned out
Canadian viewers seemed to give up on the Ottawa Senators before the fifth game of the Stanley Cup final was played on Wednesday. The deciding game of the series drew only 2.163 million viewers, the smallest CBC audience of the final.
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays-Toronto Blue Jays telecast on TSN, which drew 278,000 viewers, and the option of watching a Toronto FC-New York Red Bulls telecast or Gold Cup soccer game between Canada and Costa Rica on Rogers Sportsnet (national audience unavailable) clearly cut into the CBC's viewership.
The CBC averaged 2.502 million viewers over the five games (Senators-Anaheim Ducks), down 18 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively, from last year's final (Edmonton Oilers-Carolina Hurricanes, 3.042 million) and the 2004 final (Calgary Flames-Tampa Bay Lighting, 3.735 million).
The 2004 and 2006 series had the advantage of going seven games. A long series produces larger audience figures.
Because a Canadian team was involved, the CBC's average this year ranks as the third largest in the past 10 years and sixth largest since 1989, when Nielsen starting measuring audiences with People Meters.
The French-language Réseau des Sports averaged 624,000 viewers over the five games, up 12 per cent from last year.
In the United States, NBC's three telecasts earned the smallest ratings (percentage of households tuned in) for the championship series since 1994, when the NHL started airing games on U.S. network television.
NBC had a national rating of 1.8 for the fifth game, down 28 per cent from the fifth game last year. Over three telecasts, NBC averaged a 1.6, 20 per cent below the 2.0 for the first three telecasts last year and 30 per cent below the 2.3 for the five telecasts in 2006.
NBC's 2006 ratings ranked as the smallest since 1994.
James to the rescue
LeBron James will give the National Basketball Association final something that was missing from the Stanley Cup final: a young superstar who, by himself, can bring viewers to the telecasts.
TSN, which is airing ABC's coverage of the Cleveland Cavaliers-San Antonio Spurs series, anticipates James making a difference.
"I can tell you, we had no objection to Cleveland winning the Eastern [Conference] final," TSN president Phil King said. "We knew that getting a young superstar in there would help."
James spiked TSN's audience for the fifth game of the Eastern final, when he scored 48 points and 29 of Cleveland's final 30. The network drew 155,000 viewers, up 35 per cent from its postseason average.
In the United States, the NBA's postseason ratings are down. ABC's average rating of 2.9 is a drop of 24 per cent from last year. That's why ABC analyst Mark Jackson says James is "just what the doctor ordered."
Three in booth
Former Blue Jays players Jesse Barfield and Rance Mulliniks will join announcer Jim Hughson for the CBC baseball broadcasts this season.
Mulliniks has been working in television for several years. Barfield has done studio analysis for the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers.
The CBC's first Blue Jays telecast is June 23 - Colorado Rockies at Toronto - in high-definition television.
The CBC's one-hour Stanley Cup postgame show on the ice at the Honda Center was terrific. The interviews, stories and involvement of players' families, often including mom and dad, made it more than a sports telecast - it was Canadiana at its best.
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