CBC coverage goes for all the gusto Network aims to lure borderline sports fans
by Stephanie Levitz August 6th, 2008
All Olympics, all the time, pretty much all of August.
Marking the last time they'll be Canada's official Olympic broadcaster, at least for the next six years, CBC's 2008 Summer Games broadcast is aiming for its own kind of gold medal.
"These Games will be the most spectacular, the most compelling and easily the most important Olympic Games of my lifetime," said Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports and chef de mission for CBC/Radio-Canada's broadcast.
Moore says these Games are a "statement broadcast" for the public corporation, and they intend to set the bar extraordinarily high for the next official Olympic broadcaster -- CTV.
They paid US$153-million for the rights to broadcast the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Games in London, taking the Olympics away from the CBC for the first time since 1996.
CBC paid $73 million for the 2006 and 2008 Games.
Filmed entirely in high definition, coverage from the CBC will begin today, two days before the official opening ceremonies, with live coverage of a preliminary women's soccer match between Canada and Argentina.
From then, until the closing ceremonies on Aug 24, there will be more than 2,000 hours of English language programming, including on radio, digital cable and mobile phones.
More than 1,500 hours of the coverage will be on CBCsports.ca, including a daily highlights package in Mandarin.
For the first time, up to nine events will also be streamed online.
"In today's media landscape you want to provide your consumers or your viewers with what they want and when they want it," said Trevor Pilling, the executive producer of CBC's broadcast.
"What the web does is it allows people a connection to your content all the time."
Sports that don't ordinarily get televised coverage, like table tennis, will be available online as will longer-length interviews and features that might not make it onto the televised broadcasts.
CBC Television will begin each day of the Olympics with a six-hour morning show hosted by Diana Swain and Scott Russell. Veteran broadcaster Ron MacLean will host a prime-time show while Ian Hanomansing will take over at midnight ET, prime time in the West.
Sports analysis will be handled by a strong roster of talent, including former Olympians like Mark Tewksbury and Donovan Bailey. Injured hurdler Perdita Felicien, who was forced to pull out of the Games, will also step into the broadcast booth.
Even the little cameras on archery targets will be filmed in high definition, Moore said.
With a 12-hour time difference between Beijing and Toronto, viewers will see gold medal events like swimming and gymnastics in prime time. Olympic organizers flipped the swimming schedule, holding medal events in the morning in China so they could be shown in prime time in North America.
TSN will carry a variety of sporting events -- including cycling, rowing, basketball, softball and tennis live in the early morning hours, as well as offer recaps and highlights during prime time.
CBC's cable channel Bold will also offer 250 hours of coverage.
In between all of the sports coverage, other news and features will be broadcast on CBC Newsworld.
This Olympics is different, conceded Moore, in that it has a much higher news value than previous Games, and it's changing how they're covering the Games.
For the first time, news anchors -- Hanomansing and Swain -- are part of the coverage. They join Peter Mansbridge, who will be hosting the CBC's flagship news show The National from Beijing for the four nights leading up to the opening ceremonies.
"We've certainly looked at it a little differently than other Olympics because one way or another it is going to be one of the most historic news events of our generation," Moore said.
Moore said the heightened level of interest in these Games will snare a different kind of viewer.
"The Olympics does tend to interest the borderline sports fan," said Moore. "I think even more so these Games, people will be tuning in to see what happens."
In the United States, NBC is billing their 3,600 hours of Games coverage as the most "ambitious single media project in history."
A major difference between the two is that NBC won't be showing as many events live, but will tape key events to broadcast in prime time.
The network told analysts recently it expects to make $1 billion from ad sales on their broadcasts.
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