VANCOUVER – CTV will carry live coverage of the Closing Ceremony from the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in both English and French this Sunday.
The announcement comes after the CTV-Rogers broadcast consortium faced criticism for airing the Opening Ceremony on tape delay a full day after the fact. While the International Paralympic Movement requests that the ceremonies be broadcast live, The Canadian Press reported that the choice to tape delay the event was due to “contracts for other programming that couldn’t be broken”.
While the budget for both the opening and closing ceremonies of last month’s Olympics was $38 million, the total budget for the Paralympic ceremonies is just under $6 million, according to the CP story.
Inquiries to the Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium seeking comment were not returned by press time.
Brian Williams will anchor for CTV alongside three-time Paralympic Games gold medallist Marni Abbott-Peter, while Claude Mailhot and Claudine Douville will handle hosting duties on RDS.
– Lesley Hunter
