TORONTO – Both TSN and CBC today announced an enormous slate of Winter Olympic programming beginning February 10th at 1 p.m.
Keying this year’s coverage is 39 hours of HD programming out of over 1,000 hours of live and taped coverage. This will be disappointing for those with HD sets, who will likely tune into NBC, which is carrying far more of its Olympic coverage in high definition. NBC’s Olympic programming is being shot and produced in HD and downconverted to SD when required.
New this year, however, is CBC’s deal with Bell Canada, which will see results and video transmitted to Bell Mobility customers for viewing on their mobile phones. Twenty-one hours of content will be made available this way.
CBC/Radio-Canada will have a dedicated production team to create exclusive CBC Olympic Games content for Bell Mobility. Hourly CBC/Radio-Canada Olympic highlight packages will be available for viewing 18 times a day in English and 13 times a day in French to Bell Mobility subscribers, every day of the Games on the 1x and EVDO networks. With the benefits of Bell’s EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) network, currently available in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal, Bell Mobility will stream CBC/Radio-Canada Olympic content at download rates of up to 2.4 Mbps in 20 seconds or less.
Additionally, Bell Mobility subscribers with MobiTV functionality will be able to view herky-jerky CBC/Radio-Canada broadcast coverage live on their phones.
"CBC/Radio-Canada’s audiences are on the move, and we’re moving with them. Including wireless video as part of our overall Olympic offering will ensure that Canadians can get up-to-the-minute Olympic content wherever they are," said Claude Galipeau, CBC’s executive director of digital services and business development.
CBC will also offer a daily broadcast package with 13 hours of English Olympic programming each day to Rogers Digital Cable subscribers’ video on demand service (delayed by 24 hours). The content will be free to Rogers Digital customers.
CBC will provide more than 1,000 hours of coverage of Torino 2006 – The Olympic Winter Games – more than any other network in North America. CBC’s wall-to-wall coverage kicks off on Friday, Feb. 10 at 1 p.m. ET with live coverage of the Opening Ceremony.
CBC will maintain the network’s tradition of airing most events live and, together with CBC Newsworld, Radio-Canada and CBC Country Canada, “will tell all of the compelling stories of guts, glory and determination from Turin,” says the press release today.
All combined, CBC will broadcast more than 480 hours of English-language coverage, with CBC Television providing 304 hours, CBC Newsworld airing 125 hours, CBC HD offering 39 hours and CBC Country Canada providing 20 hours of live coverage. For French viewers, Radio-Canada will broadcast 225 hours of coverage. CBC will also produce an additional 21 hours of unique Olympics content tailored specifically for mobile phones.
CBC will produce an additional 275 hours of Games coverage, with 125 hours airing on TSN and 150 hours airing on RDS. For all TSN broadcasts, play-by-play and analysis will be provided by CBC personalities.
In order to accommodate the six-hour time difference in Italy, CBC Television will begin each broadcasting day with Olympic Morning, hosted by Terry Leibel, followed by Olympic Afternoon, hosted by Ron MacLean. Together, Leibel and MacLean will provide more than nine hours of daily, live coverage.
For most viewers who can only watch the Olympic Winter Games in the evening, Brian Williams’ Olympic Prime-Time, airing nightly, will recreate the Olympic experience and atmosphere – retaining all the excitement, suspense and drama, depicting how the action unfolded that Olympic day with athlete interviews, special features and in-studio guests. Williams, for the most part, will be in Toronto, though.
CBC Radio One will also keep Canadians abreast of developments in Turin with Olympic Report, a series of updates five minutes in length airing every hour throughout the day from Feb. 11 to 26.
Olympic fans can visit www.cbc.ca/olympics 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the Games for comprehensive coverage, including breaking news, in-depth reports, live results and medal counts, team standings, sport backgrounders, athlete diaries, broadcast schedules, interactive features and more.
