Source : Globe & Mail

Last Friday, Richard Stursberg, the newly minted head of CBC English TV, gave a so-called state-of-the-union address to staff about his network's upcoming programming and fiscal strategy.

He also addressed the Crown corporation's chances of once again snagging the Olympics in 2010 and 2012. Staffers who attended the hour-long lunchtime chat in a 10th floor studio in Toronto, described Stursberg as "more cautious than optimistic."

"He basically warned us the stakes were high, that we had a very strong track record, but we had to be financially prudent. Most of us read between the lines that competition was stiff and we might not win," said one long-time CBC employee.

"The notion that many of us were shocked and destroyed when the news came down yesterday that Bell Globemedia/Rogers had won the rights is ludicrous. If anything, most of us felt that we'd been given a gentle heads-up that we might be outgunned."

CBC's line that, as a Crown corporation, it has to carefully watch its dollars and cents is no doubt true. It is also, however, a polite way of acknowledging it had been out-pitched by a deep-pocketed, powerful consortium that had covered all the bases. And the $20- to $50-million topper (depending on who you talk to) over CBC's bid didn't hurt.

Still, it's a bitter pill for the CBC to swallow. Especially since, as CBC president Robert Rabinovitch noted in an internal memo on Monday, "We had just been awarded the Golden Rings prize for our broadcast in Athens. We know that the quality of our broadcasts are among the best in the world, and our experience in Olympic broadcasting is unsurpassed."

Brian Williams, who started hosting the Olympics for CBC in 1984 (he's worked 11 in total) readily admits it's a blow to the ego and morale of CBC staff.

"Yes, it's disappointing," Williams said. "But I would not have been surprised if it went either way. It was a good, hard battle and, from what I hear, a very fair battle. One side has to get it, and one side doesn't.

"In the past, CBC's come out on top, but the reality is properties move back and forth in television. My focus, and our focus, has to be on the properties we have: the CFL, Tennis, World Cup skiing, and so forth.

"And foremost in my mind, preparing for Turin a year from this weekend."

The IOC announced Monday that Bell Globemedia and Rogers had paid $153-million (U.S.) for the Canadian rights to the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 Summer Games.

Together, they control CTV, Rogers Sportsnet, TSN, its French sister RDS, 22 specialty TV channels, radio stations and The Globe and Mail.

It's been a difficult five months for CBC Sports, which has been the dominant sports broadcaster in the country for years, but now faces a number of serious questions. CBC's sports head Nancy Lee will meet with her staff today in Toronto. She's expected to reassure the group that sports is still a going concern at the CBC. (In a few weeks, the network will broadcast curling's Scott Tournament of Hearts and The Brier. It also owns the rights to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.)

In an interview, Lee said she was optimistic about the future of CBC Sports. She also denied a rumour that she's been offered a job by a U.S. network.

But others are concerned. Ron MacLean, an Olympic anchor and host of Hockey Night In Canada, says he wasn't surprised the CBC lost the 2010 and 2012 Olympiads. The bigger issue, he said, is the prolonged absence of NHL hockey.

"If the NHL Players' Association finds the courage to fight the fight, we could be talking (no hockey for) two years,'' he said. "And, if we're talking two years, it gets interesting -- for all of us, including me. I would just assume that sooner or later they would say we can't sustain this (the present sports department). Sooner or later, the shoe will drop."

The fear, of course, is that the sports department would be gutted or dismantled, and people thrown out of work. A year ago, the CBC laid off 55 people, shut down its sports documentary unit and cancelled Newsworld's The Sports Journal.

Still, if the NHL season and playoffs are called off, the impact at the network would be profound. The $20-million-plus (Canadian) that the CBC earns, after expenses, from the playoffs would be lost. Without that money, programming and jobs would disappear.

And the Bell Globemedia-Rogers Olympic victory sent another chilling message to people at the public broadcaster. CBC Sports, in many ways, exists at the pleasure of the private sector.

"When it comes down to the private sector and when there's an opportunity to really go after something that's attractive, it's hard for the CBC to compete,'' MacLean said. "As you know, the reason we have NHL hockey is the private sector doesn't take an interest in putting 60 nights of playoffs on in the spring" when it can air profitable U.S. prime-time shows.

But the picture at CBC Sports and the network isn't entirely bleak. A former senior network executive said yesterday that the CBC's Olympic loss could be an impetus for change. "The CBC should be looking at taking the resources they might have given to the Olympics and turning them into programs that will make the CBC a great public broadcaster,'' he said. "I think this gives them a chance to reshape their mandate into something that makes more sense in a multi-channel universe."

And another observer defended the CBC's decision not to blow its brains out in a bidding war, noting "nobody called CBS a nitwit when it withdrew from the Olympic bidding in the States this past year. They just said it doesn't make economic sense with the kind of numbers being thrown around." (NBC paid $2.2-billion U.S.).

"There are four things you have to have to be a major sports network in this country: hockey, the Grey Cup, the Olympics and curling. CBC still has the Olympics for two more games, and they own the Grey Cup, own hockey for another three seasons. The sports department is hardly dead."

CTV and Rogers have way more platforms and specialty services to show Olympics and amateur sports than does CBC -- services and platforms that require programming. The CBC, to build up to the Olympics, would have had to carry a lot of amateur winter sports on its main service and hope that the Vancouver games would be the big commercial payoff for that.

Rabinovitch told the House of Commons standing committee on Canadian Heritage last November at his renewal hearings that if his company did not get the Olympics bid, his board would have to seriously question its investment in the coverage of Olympic sports (in other words, amateur sport). When you combine this with the fact that CBC wants to get back into local and regional news and current affairs, wants to add more dedicated radio stations and TV and hub stations, and wants to do more drama broadcasting in prime time, then perhaps the whole debate is a no-brainer.

© The Globe and Mail