Super Bowl has different look in Canada CTV won’t run commercials from CBS feed
By David Barron HoustonChronicle.com February the 5th, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Greetings from the host city for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which start a week from today.
Our Hearst Newspapers office at the Main Press Center is within a few feet on Vancouver’s harbor of some absolutely breathtaking scenery — none of it, alas, visible from our cubicle. I’d rather be outside walking today than inside writing.
This will be the third time I’ve been on the road for a Winter Olympics on Super Bowl Sunday. Salt Lake City was no problem, but I skipped the game in 2006 because it aired at 2 a.m. or so Italian time.
CTV carries the game in Canada, but, horror of horrors, interposes its own commercials over the CBS commercials. I’m still trying to find a way to watch the U.S. commercials Sunday night, but it doesn’t look good.
Speaking of commercials, a subject that I cover in some detail in today’s Star section, CBS’ airing of Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials on Wednesday night was viewed by 11.2 million viewers, which doubles the network’s normal audience for that time slot.
Bob Horowitz, executive producer of the show and president of Juma Entertainment, estimates that interest in Super Bowl commercials accounts for 30 percent of the show’s audience. And while he thinks that more ads like the Tim and Pam Tebow spot for Focus on the Family would reduce the entertainment value of Super Bowl Sunday, he doesn’t see that happening.
“I know all about the Supreme Court decision (which removed limits on corporate spending in political campaigns), and it makes all the sense in the world that we should be concerned,” Horowitz said. “If they can pluck down $3 million and get 30 seconds of exposure to 100 million people, that’s something to consider, but I don’t think that they will spend their money that way.
“What works in the Super Bowl, in the end result, is humor. I don’t think serious spots resonate. Funny spots resonate. If you’re hard-selling cars or saying my beer has fewer calories, I don’t think the ear focuses in on that.”
Sunday’s Super Bowl section will detail the pregame features on CBS, NFL Network and ESPN. As for what to expect Sunday, NFL Today analyst Shannon Sharpe thinks he has a fairly clear picture.
“If the Colts don’t turn the ball over, I don’t see how they lose this ballgame,” Sharpe said. “Peyton Manning lives in a zone 8 by 10 yards wide and 10 yards deep. If you can get him out of there, you can cause problems. If you can’t …”
Dan Marino also said the game hinges on the Saints’ ability to pressure Manning.
“You have to have that pressure on him the whole game, basically, or he’s going to tear you up,” Marino said. “You have to play a perfect game, you have to get pressure on him, and you have to find a way to limit his possessions.”
As for Sunday’s audience, Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports and News, isn’t making any predictions.
“If we get a close game, we’ll get an extraordinary rating, and if we get an OK game, we’ll get a really good rating because of the story lines,” McManus said.
McManus said this year’s extraordinary NFL ratings were the result, in part, of the Brett Favre factor, an intriguing race in the NFC East, and a tight playoff race down the stretch in the AFC.
“As people have less time to go out of their homes or some people have less money to go out, it just seems that the NFL is becoming the No. 1 attraction for more and more people,” he said.
The commercial deletion that happens on the CTV broadcast wouldn't be so annoying if Canadian advertisers actually did special spots for Super Bowl. But they're either too lazy or too near-sighted to recognize a huge marketing opportunity when they see it. So we'll be getting about 40 replays of the current Tim Horton's "breakfast sandwich" spot...the A & W "Mama Burger" spot (which, funny as it is, I've already seen about 20 times)...whatever Home Hardware and Canadian Tire have been running since January, and so forth. In the U.S., viewers are glued to their TVs during commercial breaks so they don't miss any of the Super Bowl spots. In Canada, it's a bathroom break or trip to the 'fridge. But what's more costly: spending $$$ to create a special TV spot for Super Bowl that gets noticed and remembered, or wasting $$$ by running the same old stuff that's already been seen and having people yawn and turn away?
As the annual brouhaha over no Canadian access to the US Super Bowl spots is at its peak, I am grateful my HD feed from the Detroit CBS station will not be subject to 'simultaneous program substitution.'
At least, that's my assumption. No other football games this season in the High Def band have been tampered with, and I hope that will continue.
I wonder at what level of HDTV penetration the Canadian networks will mount a campaign to force cable & satellite providers to knuckle under to their further ad plundering.
There are areas of the province (served by Shaw) that do not do simultaneous broadcasts. I guess when the market area is small they don't care. Like politicians
Gord Lansdell wants to make sure readers of this thread are aware that Videotron in Qubec is promoting the US Super Bowl ads as a feature of their HD cable service.
Since here in BC Shaw is also expected to provide an unsubstituted HD feed from CBS Detroit, it could be that HD is being given a compliance pass so far.
My Shaw ( ex Star Choice)Satellite Hd has had the U.S. commercials for years. I'd call a few few sports bars in Vancouver and ask what their feed is. A lot of bars promote the fact that they will have the U.S. commercials---I know Hooters does!
Gord Lansdell reports that Shaw in Vancouver has already 'simultaneously substituted' the CTV feed of the pre-game on Detroit CBS HD, so our hopes of seeing the US commercials have been dashed.
However, there's always the on-line streams, some of which are bound to be US-based.
And exactly what was all the fuss about? I saw the US commercials, at least for the first three quarters, and there were exactly none that were super memorable. No spots that people will be talking about for years to come. I can't think of any that will be on a favourite Super Bowl ads reel. There were a few fairly clever ones, but where are the take-a-chance, do something crazy and different, creative minds?
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