TORONTO – With just one month to go until the official start of the 2010 Olympic Games, Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium unveiled more details of their coverage plans, dubbed “the most ambitious media initiative in Canadian history”.
“Throw away any pre-conceived notions you may have about an Olympic Games broadcast,” said Ivan Fecan, president and CEO of CTVglobemedia and CEO of CTV, in the announcement. “We are giving consumers complete control of their Olympic Games experience, tailored for our digital age.”
In order to allow Canadians to experience the Games on their own terms, the broadcast team has developed three levels of coverage: ‘Best of the Best’ (on CTV and V), ‘Extended’ (on TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, RDS and others), and ‘Complete’ across the consortium’s two dedicated websites.
‘Best of the Best’ will provide live coverage of the top stories and most significant events at any given time, including every Canadian medal victory. It will also include highlights from events happening concurrently on other channels, directing viewers to additional networks for extended coverage.
‘Extended’ will air live coverage of “key events” – such as hockey games, curling matches, alpine skiing races, figure skating programs, and speed skating, from start to finish.
The websites CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca will offer the ‘Complete’ coverage, which could include up to 14 concurrent live streams of feeds from CTV, TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, V and RDS, as well as the live host broadcast stream of every sport and discipline from beginning to end of competition.
Unlike other Olympic Games, every second of every competition will be available live and in high definition, encompassing more than 4,800 hours of coverage in 22 languages on 12 television channels, 20 radio stations and the two websites. To crunch the numbers even further, that means more than 2,250 hours of coverage on television, 2,350 hours on-line and 200 hours on radio.
And that’s not including the peripheral “glamour and glitz” coverage of the Games, such as celebrity sightings, style, fashion and pop culture, which will air on CTV’s E-Talk entertainment show, FashionTelevision and MuchMusic.
Whew. So how can viewers determine what to watch and when? The broadcast consortium has that covered, too. Starting February 1st, it will offer an interactive and customizable viewers’ guide on its two websites, which can be downloaded as a mobile application.
And if that’s not enough, the IOC has also commissioned the consortium to provide the world broadcast feed for men’s and women’s hockey, figure skating, curling and short track speed skating, offering video coverage of these four sports to all international rights-holders.
For viewers who wish to keep up with some of their favourite CTV shows, the network announced that its /A\ Channel network will air many of its prime time and day part hits during the duration of the Games. Both CTV and /A\ will return to their regular schedules beginning March 1, 2010.
– Lesley Hunter
