Thursday, July 28, 2005

An Odd Inference

In Googling, as part of an attempt to see if I could learn more about the CBC-CCA rift mentioned in the previous post, I discovered that the cbc.ca site featured an article on the subject and thought it worth a read to see whether it was slanted differently from the earlier tsn.ca article on which I had based my earlier post.
As it turns I do not see any major different slant in the article, but I did note a rather odd inference:

Not all viewers were disappointed in CBC's curling coverage.

Ratings for the Brier and Tournament of Hearts were up 15 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively, from CBC's broadcast the previous year.

Well, I watched as much as I could of both tournaments, and nobody could claim that I was not disappointed. So the existence of more people like me hardly seems to confirm the claim of the first quoted paragraph. After all, we had nowhere else to go if we wanted to watch.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

TV Contracts

Both of us who contribute to this blog have expressed some disdain for the television coverage arrangements of last year. Explaining how bad they were would require explaining bizarre details of our broadcasting institutions.
In any case, no doubt exactly because of the pressure exerted by this blog, the Canadian Curling Association is walking away from its contract with the CBC. Or so the story goes. Meanwhile the CBC cries foul.
To quote the article:

The CCA served CBC with a letter terminating its contract citing non-performance and an inability to fix a number of problems that drew the ire of curling fans from coast-to-coast during this year's Scott Tournament of Hearts, Tim Hortons Brier and Ford World curling championships.

Nancy Lee, the head of CBC Television Sports, said last week the public broadcaster has three years left on its contract and will seek damages.


To be honest I don't like people simply abandoning inconvenient contracts, but then I do not yet understand all the details. We will maintain attention and keep reporting on this gripping development.