It was boilerplate Coach's Corner last Saturday. A loud tie, a tip for the kids, blaming the victim (not the aggressor), and a shout-out to a player he's watched since the kid's days in Toronto minor hockey. Honestly, Don Cherry's act could go on forever on Hockey Night in Canada. He's Henny Youngman without the violin.
Yet even if Cherry wants to rage like Lear into his 80s, recent events suggest there's no guarantee the man in the loud suits will have a stage at CBC on which to tread. With its recent loss of Major Leaguer Soccer rights, the Corp. has industry insiders wondering if it is going out of the sports business. Soccer, with its indifferent ratings but sterling optics, was thought to be CBC's bulwark should other sports properties leave.
But CTV/ TSN's grab of the mediocre MLS package (and competitive Euro 2012/16) indicates that CBC is at a hundred-dollar table with five dollars in its hand. Why? Sports is the last vestige of appointment viewing (Fox TV boss David Hill has talked openly about the model of mixing sports and entertainment on the same channel again). With conventional delivery models for content being squeezed by new technologies, everyone with a cellphone, Internet or cable business has rushed to grab a piece of the sports content pie as insurance.
CBC is left to compete against well-capitalized communications giants that can amortize rights purchases and talent raids against their cellphone or cable TV businesses. Plus, the federally subsidized broadcaster is finding it hard to justify to the Conservative government using tax money to take assets from the private side. The CBC talks brave, but the clock is running on its traditional model of having Hockey Night underwrite its other operations.
Well-funded CTV/TSN and Rogers have set their sights on the next Canadian Olympic TV bids, CFL rights, curling, NFL and the NHL contract starting in 2014. Newly minted Shaw/Global is rushing to follow them with its application for a sports channel. Telus is also aggressively pursuing strategies to allow it to control sports content as well.
One thing is certain: The former kingpin of Canadian sports broadcasting is now a supplicant, looking for a hand-up from the giant telco and broadcast entities formed in the past decade. With its national network and production resources, CBC would appear to be the free-agent network that can provide a huge asset to eager suitors from the private side. But sources suggest that the Tories may not look favourably upon CBC forming a partnership with one private network at the expense of another.
If CBC's worried, it's not showing it. The Corp. is leisurely pursuing a successor to sports vice-president Scott Moore, who left for Rogers four months ago (hey, it took them six months to nominate Kirstine Stewart to succeed Richard Stursberg as executive vice-president of English services). With no successors in sight, Cherry and sidekick Ron MacLean are set to be free agents when their contracts expire in two years. Both are making noises about calling it a day at CBC.
The current management of CBC's television operations seems focused on sitcoms and reality TV at the expense of its news and sports operations. But how long can it afford that if CBC loses its Hockey Night revenue? There is some hope that the NHL will want to perpetuate the institutional memory of Hockey Night on CBC. Hockey Day in Canada next Saturday, from Whitehorse this year, is a valuable asset, too.
But it's fair to say that the loss of its legendary sports department would be the end of the CBC as we've known it.
CHECKING SOURCES
The Fan 590's Andrew Krystal says rumours of his demise are unfounded. The morning drive host on the sports station has lately been subjected to speculation about his future from itchy-fingered Twitter types. "They ask, 'Confirm or deny,' on these rumours, but then they never confirm with me or my program director [Don Kollins]" Krystal tells Usual Suspects. "It's elemental reporting to get the other side. They haven't." And what would he tell them? "I'm not going anywhere," Krystal said.
As for the challenge from Mike Richards on TSN radio in April, Krystal said bring it on. "Competition is great for everyone. I look forward to it."