If You Can't Be a Sport, Broadcast One
by licensed television critic Farrell ChildeOctober 13, 2005
A quarter of a century ago some enterprising Canadian capitalists thought the Canadian public's appetite for television could not be sated. They decided to market a new range of pay television channels, in addition to the regular cable package. You may recall the heady days just before these channels went into operation, days occupied by endless rhapsodies in the press about the enormous profits to be made selling these channels to a Canadian public eager for more sports, more music videos, and more movies they didn't bother to go to the theatre to see.
You may also recall the days following the launch, during which everyone asked "What happened?" The new channels were less than a stunning success. Most of them were losing money. In a normal business environment, of course, these developments would have had a normal result – the owners of the unprofitable pay services would have swallowed their losses and closed down their businesses. But they weren't in a normal business environment, were they? They were in Canadian television.
As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's status as a cultural icon shows, absence of a demand for one's product is no bar to success in the business environment of Canadian television. The same could be said of numerous cable channels which are force fed to Canadians who have to buy them to get the channels they really want. And as Canadian private broadcasting shows, absence of a need for your service is no bar to getting government to help you force the Canadian public to pay for your valueless product (as explained in another article).
So a couple of channels which people didn't want to watch – MuchMusic and The Sports Network – ended up being included in regular cable packages so they could have a larger market to advertise to. Of course, the additional "service" being provided justified increased cable fees. That is, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decided that if these channels weren't interesting Canadians, Canadians should be forced to buy them anyway.
But the public did not revolt and the two stations survived. Then CTV and Fox Sportsnet got the idea that if one unpopular sports channel could be a success, so could another one. The CRTC agreed, and so the Canadian version of Sportsnet was born.
Along the way Rogers Communications bought a piece of Sportsnet (the channel is now entirely owned by Rogers), and Sportsnet ended up being being included in the basic Rogers cable package. That is, it gets a low channel and everyone who has cable has to pay for it, including those perpetual malcontents who can't persuade themselves to pay extra for a bunch of channels whose programs chiefly feature people coming to your house to tell you how ugly it is and by the way you don't dress too good either.
And what do we basic cable subscribers get for what we give Sportsnet? We do get broadcasts of major league sporting events, but most of the time we get other stuff. We get show jumping, we get rerun after rerun of Sportsnet News (their summary of sports results), and we get poker, lots and lots of poker.
Poker is not generally considered a sport. It's a game of chance. But it has one big advantage to a network with low ratings and consequently with low advertising rates – it's way cheap, so you can keep more of your advertising revenue. The players don't get appearance fees, and they even put up the prize money themselves. Broadcast costs are minimal; you just set up a couple of cameras at a poker table and you're ready. The announcers are people you've never heard of, so they don't need to be paid a lot of money. Celebrity glamour is (occasionally) provided by entertainers who are between engagements.
Both Sportsnet and TSN also cope with costs by rebroadcasting American productions. Much of Sportsnet's soccer coverage comes from Fox and Sky TV, and its Sunday night baseball from ESPN. TSN promotes ESPN coverage as well. In fact, the CRTC seems to disapprove of competitive behaviour by these two stations. For example, TSN broadcasts Toronto Blue Jays games, although the Jays are owned by Sportsnet's owner, Rogers. Prices are kept low by prohibiting the CBC, which pioneered coverage of the Jays back when the team batting average was .198, from bidding for them. It's apparently not in the national interest to have Canadian baseball on a national Canadian broadcast network any more.
And the two channels are expanding! They're adding additional "services"! I predict that within a few years all the coverage of sports that people actually want to watch will have been hived off to new ancillary channels for which an additional fee is required, and Sportsnet and TSN will be providing a mix of hopscotch, tiddlywinks, and championship cribbage in exchange for the money you give them.
The Canadian television industry – marching boldly into the future with its hand firmly in your pocket!
If You Can't Be a Sport, Broadcast One © John FitzGerald, 2005
