Source : Toronto Star

As the chances of a settlement in the NHL lockout rapidly diminish, the
anxiety level is rising among Canada's sports broadcasters.

And nowhere are the worry lines deeper than at the CBC, where the NHL has
been the network's sugar daddy for many years.

"Things are pretty tense," says one CBC sports staffer, who like all the Star
spoke to asked for anonymity. "There are a lot of very upset people wondering if the axe is going to drop, especially if we lose the Olympics."

That could happen on Feb. 9, when the International Olympic Committee decides
whether the 2010 and 2012 Games should go to the CBC or a consortium involving CTV, TSN and Rogers Sportsnet.

"That's the day we're all looking at," said another CBC employee. "If we lose
the Olympics, there could be a lot of cuts."

The CBC, which stands to lose upwards of $20 million if the NHL season is
cancelled, says layoffs are not planned.

But they weren't ruled out.

"We don't know," said CBC Sports executive director Nancy Lee. "We'll find
out when we get a decision from the league about the season. We've got to wait until then."

But with 50 employees laid off when players were locked out in September and
another 55 cut when the CBC closed its sports documentary division earlier last year, not everyone is buying that.

"You have to wonder how they're going to find work for everybody," said one
staffer.

Staff who survived the first cuts have been reassigned to a variety of jobs.
Host Ron MacLean, who won a $400,000 salary in a public contract dispute two
years ago, has been hosting variety shows, movie nights and even done a few
turns on radio.

Reporter Brenda Irving was moved behind the scenes and is producing Olympics
features for 2006. Reporters Scott Oake and Elliotte Friedman have moved from
the hockey sidelines to snowboarding, speed skating and bobsledding.

Lee denies that morale has suffered more than would be expected.

"We miss hockey, there's no question about it," she said. "The (earlier
layoffs) had an effect, too.

It's more a matter of activity. For a while we didn't have much, but next
month we've got figure skating and curling so things will look up."

There are some hard feelings over the cancellation of next month's Hockey Day
In Canada, which has run every February since 2000.

"We made that decision in September when we realized there would be no hockey," said Lee. "I don't have the staff; I don't have the budget.

"We thought a lot about it because we love Hockey Day but at the end of the
day it was decided it couldn't be mounted."

While the CBC has billed the event as a "celebration of the game," its
cancellation wasn't a surprise to most in the business. Even with an NHL
triple-header involving Canadian teams, the hockey features averaged fewer than 200,000 viewers.

But some wondered why the CBC couldn't scale down the 13-hour show to demonstrate its commitment to the sport.

"This says the CBC cares about the NHL and not about hockey," said one
industry source.

The lockout has hurt all aspects of sports broadcasting in Canada. Overall
ratings at the sports networks have dropped substantially as a potential NHL
season has shrunk.

Taking the biggest hit are the news shows, which rely on hockey lead-ins and
highlights to generate audiences.

While the channels won't make ratings comparisons available, the numbers
speak for themselves. Saturday, for example, TSN's late edition of Sportscentre attracted only 29,000 viewers even though it had a strong lead-in from PGA golf.

Sportsnet News drew only 20,000 to Rogers Sportsnet despite following an
American Hockey League game. Last January, both networks were averaging about
four times those numbers.

Complete figures were not available for The Score, but it did report a 4 per
cent increase in its adult audience.

But since the sports channels can air cheap substitute programming and
collect millions in subscriber fees, the pain is manageable at this point.

At CBC, there are no subscriber fees and the pain is excruciating because
sports keeps the network above water. While sports comprise only 12 per cent of CBC programming, they deliver 25 per cent of its audience and 40 per cent of its ad revenue.

The CBC's replacement for Saturday night hockey, Movie Night In Canada, has
succeeded beyond expectations in keeping the audience numbers up, though not as high as hockey's 1.2 million average. The last two prime time movies averaged more than 800,000 viewers.

Ad revenue has taken a big hit, though.

Top rates for 30-second commercials on the movies range from $2,000 for the
late film to $9,000 for the 9 p.m. movie. That pales in comparison to hockey's $18,000 asking price.

And that pain will be felt even more in April, when ad rates would ordinarily
double for the playoffs. CBC president Robert Rabinovitch has said lost playoffs will cost the network $20 million, though some estimate that number could be twice that.

Although the CBC will save $76 million in production costs and rights fees if
the season's a total writeoff, that won't come close to the lost ad revenue.

© The Toronto Star