Source: CBC

Story courtesy of Financial Post

TORONTO -- Joannie Rochette's heart-wrenching personal tragedy and triumphant perseverance at the Vancouver Games has made her a household name across the country.

But two weeks ago, few outside of figure skating circles had ever heard of the Olympic medalist. And that dearth of media exposure between games is hampering Canada's grassroots athletic development, says Brian Cooper, a Toronto businessman and former president of the Toronto Argonauts football team.

Now, backed by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), Mr. Cooper aims to change that.

For more than two years, he and the COC have lobbied the national broadcast regulator to allow a consortium led by himself to introduce two 24/7 amateur specialty channels that would keep the spotlight on Canada's Olympians as they compete between Games.

“This really is something that amateur sports needs,” he said. “These people that we've been applauding for the last 17 days ... we're not going to see them again until four years from now, and it's a shame.”

More important for Canada's chronically underfunded Olympics programs, the Canada Amateur Sports Network (CASN) and the French Réseau du Sport Amateur Canadien (RSAC) would kick back tens of millions of dollars annually into the sports the channels cover.

Unfortunately for Mr. Cooper, the broadcasting industry, and it appears regulators, too, are firmly aligned against him.

And with good reason, analysts say.

Mr. Cooper and the COC are asking the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the policy-setting body for the industry, to bless the CASN and RSAC with must-carry licences. It means the country's cable and satellite providers such as Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. would be forced to offer the two channels as part of basic cable.

A mandatory fee paid would be collected by the channel's owners (and COC, which is a non-financial partner in the consortium).

Those fees would be coming out of the industry — and thus ultimately subscribers' — pockets. It's no surprise that Rogers and others have resisted since Mr. Cooper first went to the CRTC for approval of the channels in December 2007. Rogers did not respond to a request for comment.

“The [cable distributors] are right in being cranky,” said Kaan Yigit, principle analyst and president at Toronto's Solutions Research Group. “Consumers hate to be told that they have to pay for extra things they may or may not want in this day and age, even if they are for a good cause sometimes,” he said.

“And upset consumers take their frustration out on [distributors'] customer service lines.”

The new channels would pipe in content from around the globe wherever Canadians are competing. The consortium is committing $115-million to secure rights as well produce its own productions when events are on home soil. Some $30-million would be invested in Canadian amateur athletics annually, as well.

But CASN and RSAC want to charge 60¢ per subscriber for their service. If history is any indication, that will be levied against cable operators' subscriber bases.

It is grounds for oscillation from the CRTC, some suggested Monday.

The body already weighing whether to put onerous new financial demands on the distributors, who have vowed to flow them onto their subscribers. A ruling out later this month is expected to address a “fee for carriage” system that would force Rogers and other distributors to negotiate with TV networks for their free over-the-air signals.

But as audiences fragment into a growing list of platforms, traditional TV and the amateur sports programming it once held is being eroded, Mr. Cooper says.

Two dedicated channels that would foster defined audiences and attract specific advertisers could level off the declines, he said.

The large broadcasters and cablecos are increasingly uninterested in picking up rights to amateur events that do not pack as big an advertising punch as they once did. Mr. Cooper points to the Pan Am Games, which will be hosted by Toronto in 2015 but currently do not have a broadcast partner.

“You've seen what's gone on these last two weeks. This was a phenomenon that changed the country, and now its going to fade to black,” he said.

© CBC