Canada's new Olympic broadcaster will air an unprecedented level of programming hours from the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Games, the company's president Keith Pelley said yesterday.
"There has never been a commitment of this magnitude to covering the Games in this country or maybe anywhere in the world," said Pelley, who heads the CTV-Rogers Olympic consortium. "I honestly believe it will be a watershed experience."
CTV alone will provide 22 hours of programming daily for both the Vancouver and London Olympics, Pelley said.
The CBC aired 15 hours daily from Beijing, but increased the coverage on two of the three weekends.
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In addition to CTV, programming will be carried on CTV-owned TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, CTV's Outdoor Life Network, Rogers's Omni channels, as well as APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) and ATN (Asian Television Network).
French-language coverage will be seen on TQS, the Quebec-based network, as well as Réseau des Sports and Réseau Info-Sports, CTV's French-language sports services.
In total, Canadians will receive Olympic coverage in a minimum of nine languages, Pelley said. Radio programming will be carried on 10 Rogers stations countrywide.
Pelley also confirmed that every second of sports action at Vancouver will be available to Canadians on one of a multitude of media platforms. That's a first for Olympic coverage perhaps anywhere.
"When you look at it, it is astonishing," Pelley said. "It will provide unprecedented consumer choice."
CTV-Rogers will launch a standalone bilingual Olympic website, yet to be named but scheduled for early 2009. It will be used to provide news and information, live streaming and video packages. And content will be distributed on mobile devices. "Consumers will be able to watch what they want, when they want and how they want," Pelley said.
In 2005, CTV-Rogers outbid the CBC for the rights to the Olympics of 2010 and 2012, paying a record $153-million - $90-million for Vancouver and $63-million for London. CTV and The Globe and Mail are owned by the same company, CTVglobemedia.
To say Pelley is bullish on the Vancouver Olympics is an understatement. Because it is a domestic Games in which the big events will air live in prime time and Canadian athletes are expected to do well, record audiences are expected, he said.
"The performances of the athletes, combined with the location, being in Canada, combined with the multimedia options, really tickles our spine," he said. "Everything is lined up for us."
Pelley notes that Canadian athletes enjoyed significant success at winter competitions last year, reaching the podium 184 times in World Cup events.
"The only country that had more was Germany," he said. "The Americans were at 152. So, right now, we're the second best winter nation. And we know that the better your team does, the stronger your ratings will be.
"So, the combination of our team poised for success, combined with the location and the time zone and the multimedia options, it's very easy to get excited."
Beijing audiences
The Olympic networks did well with their final Beijing audience figures. The CBC's prime-time average of 1.294 million is up 16 per from Athens four years ago and 14 per cent ahead of the figure promised to advertisers. The CBC drew 933,000 for the live telecast of the closing ceremony and 1.486 million for the prime-time repeat.
For TSN, the prime-time average was 140,000, up 8 per cent from the audience promised to advertisers and 11 per cent higher than for Athens (126,000), but down 6 per cent from Sydney. NBC averaged 27.7 million prime-time viewers for its Beijing coverage, an increase of 13 per cent from Athens. The average rating of 16.2 (percentage of U.S. households tuned in) was up 8 per cent from Athens.
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