Tag Archives: Vancouver Olympics

Can we do the Olympics again?

March 13, 2010 – 1:20 pm| Posted in Sports, Video

Oh right, we have the Canadiens, who barely squeaked by the worst team in the NHL.

Time to watch curling.

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It was the best Olympics, it was the worst Olympics

March 9, 2010 – 3:14 am| Posted in Media, Sports

It's easy to throw out the hyperbole. Newspaper columnists need to have some sort of opinion about the Vancouver Olympics in order to feed the beast, satisfy their readers and their bosses. Depending on which one you read, it was either the most friendly, welcoming and well-organized Games ever, or it was a non-stop glitch-fest that will forever be marred by the death of an athlete.

CBC summarizes some reaction from around the world.

Internationally, it seemed how countries thought about these Olympics had everything to do with whether the number of medals they got met expectations.

NBC, which laid on the love for Canada pretty thick (or maybe we just thought it was thick because we're so unused to international praise), continued afterward, with Brian Williams sending a thank-you note. Jim Caple of ESPN went the opposite way, poking fun at the northern neighbours but still with the attitude that these games were awesome. (He even made fun of Canada's men's hockey team after the U.S. beat them in round-robin play, with some jokes he probably regrets now)

For Australia, which won only three Olympic medals, it was still the best winter games ever, screamed headlines from Australian Associated Press, the Australian Olympic Committee and the Australian minister for sport.

On the other hand, Russia was a disappointment at these games (a disappointment that forced the resignation of the head of the Russian Olympic Committee), and Pravda went on a rant saying simply that Vancouver is not fit to hold the Winter Olympics. On the day of the closing ceremony, criticisms read more like conspiracy theories about how organizers and officials unfairly hurt Russia to Canada's benefit.

And then, of course, there's Great Britain, which managed only a single medal at these games. But in their defence, the criticism came long before that result.

Lawrence Donegan of The Guardian was the most cited, calling it the worst Olympics ever. His words were repeated by his peers.

Of course, that prompted a lot of defend-Canada pieces from Canadian media, who quoted Olympic historians, members of the IOC and VANOC attacking that view and rating these games highly. Other columnists and editorial writers took it upon themselves to defend Vancouver 2010.

The truth is that the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games were somewhere in between. The people were friendly, but they could also be dicks sometimes, especially when they let their national pride get the better of them. The organizers were beset with an avalanche of problems, but reacted quickly to them. The opening and closing ceremonies were well choreographed, but ... well, I won't get into another debate about that.

And as for the athletic performances, there were plenty of triumphs and disappointments (or, in the case of Lindsey Vonn, Apolo Ohno and the Canadian men's speed-skating teams, both in the same week). There was the tragedy of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the heartbreaking disqualification of Sven Kramer in the 10,000-metre race, the childish reaction of Evgeni Plushenko after failing to win gold in men's figure skating, and of course Joannie Rochette, who stole some of the spotlight away from an incredible performance by Kim Yu-Na.

I spent most of these Olympics in front of my TV, and will remember quite a bit of them. I'll also remember quite a bit from the 2008 Games in Beijing, and other Olympics before them.

But to suggest that the Vancouver Olympics were the greatest ever (better than Lillehammer? Lake Placid?) or the worst ever (worse than Munich? Atlanta?) is probably pushing it a bit much.

The next games are in Russia in 2014. And even though it's four years away, it's already being denounced as the worst ever.

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There has to be a name for it

March 7, 2010 – 6:14 pm| Posted in Sports, Technology

You know what, I take back all that stuff I said about the Vancouver Olympic Committee being neglectful of Canada's other official language. Clearly they know what they're doing.

(Thanks to Joe Clark for the tip)

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Bliss

March 3, 2010 – 12:02 am| Posted in Sports, Video

From Dave Rosen on Facebook, a video of Vancouver's False Creek during the gold medal men's hockey game on Sunday. The overtime goal comes at 1:20.

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What part of “terre de nos aïeux” don’t you understand?

March 1, 2010 – 2:36 am| Posted in Opinion, Sports

Dear VANOC,

Remember a couple of weeks ago, just after the opening ceremony to your great Olympic Winter Games, when there were complaints from around here that there wasn't enough space given to Canada's other official language?

I defended you back then, downplaying the seriousness of your transgression, deflecting some attention to the media, and criticizing those who criticized you. I said there should have been more French, but I wasn't going to make a federal case out of it.

After watching the closing ceremony, I'm reconsidering that.

Outside of a few "bonjour"s and "merci"s, introductions and a speech by Jacques Rogge, the ceremonies seemed devoid of French. In the concert that came after, I kept waiting for some good French Canadian artists, but was disappointed when among the dozen or so English acts, all there was in French was a song by Marie-Mai (or as the Globe and Mail called her, "Marie-Maiv"*).

I'm not the kind of person who will sit with a stopwatch and complain when something's not exactly 50-50. Even 75-25, reflecting the approximate ratio of English to French speakers in Canada, would have been fine by me. But it wasn't even that.

When combined with the opening ceremonies, which included a single performance by Garou, it's really hard not to see this as tokenism of one of Canada's founding peoples.

But unlike some of the newspaper columnists you'll no doubt be hearing from over the next couple of days, I'm not mad.

I'm disappointed.

It's not like you weren't aware of the problem. You knew about it months ago. Both the federal and Quebec governments made sure you knew about it. You made efforts elsewhere in the organization of these Games to ensure bilingualism (which apparently took a lot of work), and I commend you for that.

And even if you didn't realize before these complaints how little attention you gave to the French language, you made plenty of changes to the closing ceremonies after the opening ones were over (including adding a very cute bit about relighting a defective column for the Olympic flame). You could have added some more French Canadian artists, maybe even a speech or two in French.

Those who want to justify this slight can come up with all sorts of reasons why. It's Vancouver's games, not Quebec's. These ceremonies are for the world, which for the most part speaks English as either a first or second language. Some might even argue that you just don't care about French, that Canada should let Quebec separate and become an English-speaking country.

None of those explanations work for me. The ceremony was all about Canada, not Vancouver or British Columbia. Hell, French Canadians didn't even represent the majority of the acts you brought in from Montreal (William Shatner and Simple Plan were the others). And though the world speaks English, I'd like to think they'd want to be exposed to different cultures, even if they don't understand the language. Some Americans appreciated Marie-Mai even if they had no idea what she was singing about. And not knowing Russian didn't take away from enjoying the Russian national anthem as performed live.

The third explanation, that you just don't care, is something I have no rebuttal for. It's just something I'd like not to believe. Because even though I'm an anglophone, I live in Quebec, I have friends and relatives who are part of this culture, who speak this language as their mother tongue, and who hoped that maybe, just maybe, they could spend a couple of hours believing that the Vancouver Olympics were their Olympics too, not just those of English Canada. The opening ceremony brought on doubts that this could be achieved, and the closing ceremony confirmed them.

I love this country, but I love Quebec too, and Montreal. I'm a federalist, and even facing what some might think are overwhelming practical arguments against it, I believe that a Canada that has two languages makes us all better. It's not something I have a rational reasons for, or scientific data to support, it's just something I feel.

What you've done has made justifying this belief more difficult. A few people on Twitter half-joked that you'd done more for the cause of Quebec sovereignty than the PQ has in decades. It's easy to dismiss that as the close-minded ravings of a die-hard separatist, but I'm understanding where they're coming from. You've made these people seem like a minor part of your country, confined to a single province out of 10. You've made them feel excluded from their own Olympics.

A people, I'll remind you, that contributed greatly to the Vancouver Games as athletes, including the one who gave Canada its first Olympic gold medal at home, the one who stole your hearts this week with a spectacular performance, and three of Canada's four double medallists. (I'm not usually one of those people who will separate Quebec athletes from Canadian ones for the sake of argument, but this point needs to be made.)

And yet, all of these athletes were proud to contribute to Canada's historic medal count, proud to drape the Canadian flag around their shoulders as they celebrated their Olympic medals, proud to look up as the Canadian flag was raised and the crowd sang their anthem in English, proud to have the word "Canada" across their chests and backs during the two memorable weeks they spent in Vancouver.

Those athletes have too much class to complain about the closing ceremony. Most of the rest of us don't care enough to make a case out of it. Even some of those in the media who calculate how many of Canada's medals came from Quebecers will take away good memories of these Olympics. Which leaves people like Réjean Tremblay, whose words can be so easily dismissed because they've been heard so often before.

So I'm speaking up. As a Canadian, as an anglophone, as someone who's not a separatist or hyper-sensitive to every perceived slight against French Canada. As someone who believes that francophones, whether they're in Quebec or elsewhere, are part of Canada too. Not just an interest group, but an equal partner in the creation of this great country. One that has as much right to speak and hear their language and live their lives in French as we do in English.

I speak as someone who believes that the French language is as much a part of Canada as the beavers, Mounties, self-deprecating humour and endearing politeness that you so proudly showcased during these ceremonies.

You may think this is minor, and in the grand scheme of things it probably is, but in what is supposed to be an event that brings the entire country together and serves as a shining moment of national pride, even a slight movement in another direction makes a big difference.

VANOC, you disappointed many Canadians. And even if every French speaker in this country comes on this blog and says it didn't matter, what's important is that you disappointed me.

And now that the Games are over, you've lost your chance to make up for it.

*UPDATE: A Globe and Mail insider tells me this wasn't actually a spelling mistake but a coding error. The "v", which also appears after other names in the piece, is actually an internal-use checkmark used by Globe editors - ironically to verify the spelling of a name - and was improperly translated into a printable character on the CTV Olympics website.

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Why Hamelin?

March 1, 2010 – 1:14 am| Posted in Media

There was another one of those embarrassing media-gets-it-wrong stories today, about who was going to carry the flag into the closing ceremonies Sunday evening.

The report apparently came out of Canadian Press, which reported that after meeting Saturday night, officials from the Canadian Olympic Committee had selected double-gold-medallist Charles Hamelin to be Canada's flag-bearer. CP said it got confirmation from "two federal government sources" as well as Hamelin himself, but not from the COC.

Websites that carry Canadian Press content posted the story. Other news sources, like Agence QMI, Cyberpresse, Canwest News Service and Rue Frontenac, rewrote CP's story, some being more careful than others about its unofficial nature.

The COC quickly denied the report, and later announced that in fact it would be Joannie Rochette who would carry the flag into the closing ceremony.

Assuming what CP reported was true - that Hamelin was told he'd be carrying the flag, that he was getting congratulations already from fellow athletes, and that people in the government also had reliable information confirming the selection - then the erroneous report is reasonable and forgiveable. To its credit, CP left room throughout the process for the possibility that it might be wrong.

I haven't found a story yet asking the obvious question: Why did Hamelin think he would be the flag-bearer? Was he asked about it and incorrectly assumed that meant he'd been selected? Did the COC intentionally mislead him to throw the media off the trail? Did someone just assume that Hamelin would be selected because he was the double-gold-medallist?

I'm hopeful that someone will be able to ask Hamelin that question, and that the various media won't shy away from it because it draws attention to the fact that they got the story wrong.

(UPDATE: This story has this paragraph: "A short-track team spokesman said later that the team was either sick of being asked about the flag-bearer job or had simply started to believe rumours that had been circulating." - Not really an explanation. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories are spreading.)

Like with the Gordon Lightfoot story, my issue isn't so much with the media getting the story wrong as their attempts to cover it up once they're corrected.

Even as I write this, hours after the official announcement, many sources still have the wrong story, including Yahoo! News, LCN, the Vancouver Province and CTV Montreal. Other stories were simply deleted, while most were quietly replaced with the announcement. Few mentioned getting the story wrong previously, some making vague references to rumours in unnamed media.

No apologies, no analysis of how they got the story wrong. And the credibility of the news media takes another hit as a result.

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Podium: Owned.

February 28, 2010 – 6:12 pm| Posted in Sports

Canada has won 14 gold medals, more than any other country ever in an Olympic Winter Games.

Physically, there are 69 actual gold medals (23 in men's hockey, 23 in women's hockey, five in curling, four in short-track men's relay, three in speed-skating team pursuit, two in women's bobsleigh, two in ice dancing, and seven individual gold medals) spread among 68 gold medallists, including double-gold-medallist Charles Hamelin.

The 26 total medals is more than Canada has won at any previous Winter Olympics (more than any Olympics except for the boycotted 1984 Games in Los Angeles), and the third spot on the medal count behind the United States and Germany is the highest Canada has ever been in that ranking.

Own the Podium may have had the unrealistic goal of Canada having more total medals than any other country, but I don't think anyone would argue now that it wasn't successful.

Canada reached for the stars, and though it didn't get there, if the consolation prize is a sea of gold, we'll take it.

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Joannie front pages

February 26, 2010 – 4:51 pm| Posted in Media, Sports

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Joannie who?

February 26, 2010 – 3:25 pm| Posted in Media, Sports

Journal de Montréal Feb. 24, 2010

I'm sure Joannie Rochette and her family would love to save the newspapers that carried the story of her courageous and impressive bronze medal in figure skating.

Fortunately the Journal de Montréal learned to spell her name properly today. They screwed it up on Wednesday's front page after her short program.

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Congratulations, Joannie

February 26, 2010 – 1:05 am| Posted in Sports

Personal best Vancouver 2010
Short program 70.00 (Nov. 2009) 71.36
Free skate 124.15 (Feb. 2010) 131.28
Total score 191.29 (March 2009) 202.64
Olympic rank 5 (2006) 3

I'll leave the eloquent writing to the dozens of newspaper writers and columnists here and abroad working on stories.

As far as I'm concerned, the numbers speak for themselves.

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French at the Olympics: Unsatisfied below 50%+1

February 16, 2010 – 2:33 am| Posted in Opinion, Slow News Day

You might think there are more important things to discuss, but to Quebec media, there's nothing more important than condemning the Vancouver Olympic Committee for having banned the French language from the opening ceremonies.

Sure, they had Garou (unless you were watching on NBC - they cut to commercial when the francophone singer came on stage), and every announcement was in both languages (French first)*, and referee Michel Verrault read the officials' oath in French, and IOC president Jacques Rogge read part of his statement in French, and Nikki Yanofsky performed the national anthem in both languages. But only one of the half-dozen songs of the ceremony were sung in French, narration by Donald Sutherland and slam poetry by Shane Koyczan weren't translated into the langue de Molière, and VANOC chair John Furlong spoke with a thick anglo accent in the few words he spoke in French.

Réjean Tremblay, Jean-Guy Fugère, Caroline Touzin, Rino Morin Rossignol, even Jean Charest and the Conservative government complained that there wasn't enough French (though Michel David suggests the government didn't complain enough).  Jean-François Bégin wonders why Wayne Gretzky was picked over Gaetan Boucher to be the one to light the flame. Patrick Lagacé sighs that we should have expected this insult to Quebec's position in Canada's heritage. Touzin says most of the volunteers there don't speak French (many of the ones who do come from Quebec). Radio-Canada has a whole dossier on the topic.

The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste expressed condemnation, according to a story that Associated Press decided was worth writing.

The Globe and Mail also editorialized in favour of more French, The Gazette devoted an editorial and two columns to the subject, and Paul Wells also chimed in, proving it's not just francophones that noticed. (Though the National Post was lukewarm in its endorsement of the outrage, and the Vancouver Sun calls it "tedious regional whining" that is "best ignored for now".) André Pratte and Guillaume Bourgault-Côté took notice of this.

Hell, even Richard Therrien complained about how commentators in France were pronouncing the city's name in the anglo way. And Chantal Hébert complains about ignorant comments posted to news stories online (while asking for comment from her own ignorant online commentators).

And Ted Bird makes a funny. So did Andy Riga.

You know it's gotten bad when even the Angry French Guy comes to the anglos' defence.

Insufficient, but not insultingly so

My first reaction was to think, as Francis Vachon did, that we should give them a bit of a break because this was in Vancouver, not Quebec City. But I'm not going to defend the organizers - these are Canada's games, not those of British Columbia, and French should have been more prominent. Hopefully they'll improve things a bit for the closing ceremonies, if only by including an extra song in Canada's other official language.

But the reaction from Quebec media - particularly Tremblay's bitter sarcasm (he suggests it was insulting to Quebecers that First Nations were given such a large role) - is over the top. There was plenty of French at the ceremony (especially when you consider that most of it didn't involve anyone talking at all), and the fact there wasn't enough to satisfy some people doesn't negate the effort made.

To me, the biggest language failure came not from VANOC or the IOC, but from the television media covering the ceremony. None of the Canadian networks provided any translation for those few parts that were only in one language. RDS and V (which basically just took the RDS feed and slapped its logo on it) didn't translate speeches and narration into French. CTV, TSN and Rogers Sportsnet didn't return the favour for speeches in French (and when those speeches came up, the closed captioning read the very helpful "[SPEAKING FRENCH]"). This despite the fact that speech text and translation were provided on giant screens at BC Place.

The closest thing to translation was NBC, which summarized the officials' oath with a "basically what he's saying here is..."

Meanwhile, during competitions, official on-screen graphics (provided by VANOC) are English-only, which astonishes me not only for the sake of Canadian bilingualism, but for every other country in the world that doesn't speak English. Having English graphics on RDS and V is insulting, moreso to me than Garou singing off-key of Furlong's pronunciation of "bienvenue".

Suddenly, we care

What got to me most about this media overhyping was that suddenly Quebec seems to care about French outside of Quebec. Tremblay lamented the plight of the Acadian people, without mentioning that Quebec and its nationalist zealots are as responsible as the rest of the country for throwing them under the bus.

I've been of the view for a long time that the battle for the survival of the French language shouldn't be fought in Quebec - where it is already dominant - but in the rest of Canada, where it is truly endangered. But Quebec sovereignists don't care about the rest of Canada because they know Quebec will eventually separate and there will be no reason to protect the language outside its borders.

At least we can hope that this so-called controversy will help people understand that this country has a serious problem with language, and that nobody seems serious about fixing it.

UPDATE: Patrick Lagacé responds to this post, saying that the battle for French outside Quebec has already been lost. Even though he says I'm "dans le champ", I actually agree with most of what he writes.

*It's been pointed out that French is an official language of the Olympics and that official announcements are always in French. I know this. I'd like to think the announcements would be in both English and French regardless. But the fact remains that French was there. It's not like they're going to give the announcement in French twice (or once in French and once in Québécois joual).

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Know your Olympians

February 15, 2010 – 1:53 pm| Posted in Media, Sports

From Page A1 of Monday's Gazette

Something just seems not quite right here. I can't put my finger on it.

I guess it's easy to get distracted by those massive thighs...

UPDATE: A correction appeared in Tuesday's paper.

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Local news takes back seat to Olympics

February 11, 2010 – 7:18 pm| Posted in Montreal, TV

Viewers of CFCF's 6pm newscast were left scratching their heads this evening as they were presented not with their familiar anchors but with CTV News Channel's Marcia MacMillan, who presented national news but gave a special shout-out to viewers of CTV Montreal.

The local newscast began five minutes later. Turns out there was a fire alarm at CTV Montreal's offices on Papineau Ave., forcing everyone outside at a most inconvenient time. It continued as normal after an awkward handoff.

The infrequent, unplanned disruptions will give way to frequent, planned ones over the next two weeks as CFCF airs Olympic coverage for the first time in almost two decades.

The noon and 11:30pm newscasts will be pre-empted throughout the Games, and the evening newscast will be reduced to half an hour, bouncing around to fit in between live Olympic events.

For the most part, the newscasts will be from 5:30pm to 6pm, except for Valentine's Day and the last day of the Olympics (which features the closing ceremony in the afternoon and early evening, pushing the newscast to 7:30).

The full schedule is on their website and reproduced below:

Date Time
Friday, Feb. 12 6-7pm (as normal)
Saturday, Feb. 13 5:30-6pm
Sunday, Feb. 14 6pm-6:30pm
Monday, Feb. 15 5:30-6pm
Tuesday, Feb. 16 5:30-6pm
Wednesday, Feb. 17 5:30-6pm
Thursday, Feb. 18 5:30-6pm
Friday, Feb. 19 5:30-6pm
Saturday, Feb. 20 5:30-6pm
Sunday, Feb. 21 5:35-6:05pm
Monday, Feb. 22 5:30-6pm
Tuesday, Feb. 23 5:30-6pm
Wednesday, Feb. 24 5:30-6pm
Thursday, Feb. 25 5:30-6pm
Friday, Feb. 26 5:30-6pm
Saturday, Feb. 27 5:30-6pm
Sunday, Feb. 28 7:30-8pm

As usual, stories will be available on demand at ctvmontreal.ca, and CTV News Channel will have news throughout the Games for you heartless bastards who hate Canada.

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You’re going nowhere, Sanka, and you’re thrilled to death about it

February 11, 2010 – 2:34 am| Posted in Media, Sports

From The Gazette, Feb. 10

Saw this ad in the paper today. It's nice that MoneyGram is willing to support athletes going to the Games, not to mention athletes from another country - and advertising it in a Canadian newspaper. But, of course, the Jamaican Bobsled Team gets support from all corners of the globe (at least ever since Cool Runnings came out).

It's unfortunate that the team didn't qualify and won't be there.

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Olympic theme songs to build your national pride

February 9, 2010 – 3:50 pm| Posted in Sports, Video

If you were watching the U.S. broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday, you missed a few dozen CTV commercials reminding you that the Olympics are coming. Among them, this video featuring Montrealer Nikki Yanofsky singing the English version of CTV's Olympic theme song, I Believe:

Of course, this being Canada, there's also a French version, sung by Annie Villeneuve, called J'imagine:

How does this compare to previous Olympic songs?

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The Bay hates Canada

January 3, 2010 – 4:00 am| Posted in Business, photos

First they gave us those awful clothes for the 2008 games in Beijing.

Now, The Bay is offering U.S. Olympic team apparel in their stores:

Clearly The Bay has either given up on this country or, worse, is purposefully trying to undermine it. Perhaps they are being influenced by an evil foreign power, or they've become distracted by pretty American things, or maybe we just did something to piss them off.

Either way, as Canadians, we must rise up and perform our duty, assert our national identity and show the world we are Canadian.

I will be the first.

Hey U.S.A., sorry aboot all that, eh?

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The CBC-Post monster is getting bigger

December 17, 2009 – 12:20 am| Posted in Media

Hey, remember when the CBC and National Post signed that content-sharing agreement and everyone was like "dude, WTF?"

Well, it looks like they're extending it to include coverage of the Vancouver Olympics (press release, press release on NP site), producing a "co-branded" website for coverage.

The CBC used to be king for Olympics coverage, but then it lost the rights to CTV, so it will for the first time since 1994 be covering an Olympics it doesn't have rights to. And considering how television rights crippled CTV so much it had to show still images instead of video, expect CBC to face similar obstacles in February.

Similarly, the Post's competitor the Globe and Mail is the official national newspaper of the Games. That won't mean exclusive rights and it's not clear if there are any editorial implications of this designation, but it puts the Post one step behind, at least psychologically.

But ... the CBC and National Post hate each other.

Or, at least, that's what they want us to think.

Anyone else think this is like the second season of a bad sitcom where the two main characters' anger toward each other boils over and they explode in a torrent of rage that's suddenly interrupted when they spontaneously get aroused and start passionately sucking face, leading to a long night of hot sex?

Are the CBC and National Post ... getting it on? Is this Olympics website their illegitimate love child?

If so, when's the hangover and walk of shame?

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The power of the rings

October 11, 2009 – 4:38 am| Posted in Media, Opinion, Sports
(No, not really)

(No, not really)

It's hard to think of an organization more anal-retentive about its trademarks than the International Olympic Committee (and, by extension, the organizing committees for the various Olympic Games). It's bad enough nobody can use the word "Olympic" without getting angry letters from their lawyers, but now it seems they're going a bit far, even by their own insane standards.

Take Richard Giles, who went to the Beijing Games last year and posted photos to Flickr under a Creative Commons license. That got a cease and desist letter from the IOC, who argued that the license was too generous, and allowed people to use his images for commercial purposes, which would violate the IOC's copyrights. Even though he took the images, simply being at an Olympic event meant the IOC had a say in how he used his photos.

Or that Free Tibet protest video that was yanked off of YouTube because the group parodied the Olympic rings logo (in one case, using handcuffs). Or the Chicago Olympic bid logo that had to be changed because it contained a torch.

It's not just the IOC. The City of Vancouver has raised the ire of civil liberties groups with a new bylaw that would make it easier for them to take down "illegal" signs (those that, say, use the Olympic logo without permission to cash in on the Games) and fine the perpetrators.

These things have already been subject to condemnation in editorials, but now it seems the message isn't getting through.

The reason for all this, of course, is money. The Olympics are big business, TV networks spend hundred of millions of dollars on broadcast rights, and sponsors pay big money to be able to claim that they support our athletes.

That's why there are a ridiculous amount of official suppliers for these Games. These include an official home improvement partner (Rona), an official lottery and gaming provider (B.C. Lottery Commission, who I guess aren't concerned with how this might look), an official motor vehicle insurance company (ICBC), an official document solutions provider (Ricoh), an official medal metal supplier (Teck Resources, which is different from the official medal manufacturer, the Royal Canadian Mint), an official supplier of industrial safety and material handling equipment (Acklands Grainger), an official temperature control system supplier (Aggreko), an official hand sanitizer dispenser supplier (ALDA Pharmaceuticals), an official supplier of insulation materials and heat transfer fluids (Dow Canada), an official water management supplier (EPCOR), an official metal detector supplier (Garrett Metal Detectors), an official cereal supplier (General Mills), an official converged network equipment supplier (Nortel), an official network server supplier (Sun Microsystems of Canada), and an official natural gas pipeline operator (TransCanada).

There are also "media" suppliers, official partners that get to put the Olympic logo on their mastheads until the end of the Games. These include 19 official newspapers in Canada: the Globe and Mail is the official national print newspaper, the Canwest chain gets all 10 of its regional newspapers (including The Gazette) in the regional newspaper category, and Gesca gets its eight papers (including La Presse) in the French newspaper category.

I'm starting to think I should take down that image at the top of this post. VANOC will get mad at me for using the logos, and the category I've suggested might just be one that they were expecting bids for.

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CRTC Roundup: Videotron must closed-caption porn

May 28, 2009 – 4:14 am| Posted in Radio, TV

We made fun of this a bit when it came out, but there was a serious policy question being asked by Videotron: Should cable companies be required to spend money closed-captioning on-demand pornography and programming aimed at preschool children who can't read?

The month, the CRTC ruled that, well, yes, they should.

While you might think it common sense that such programs should be excluded from closed-captioning requirements, the CRTC said that children should have access to captioning so they can learn to read, and parents should have access to what their children watch. There wasn't much discussion about the porn angle, namely that nobody cares what people are saying in pornographic movies.

In any case, the CRTC said Videotron hadn't made a case that it's so financially strapped that it can't afford captioning costs, so the application was denied.

Konrad's oopsie

The CRTC chairman said sorry for saying that conventional broadcasters like CTV and Global wouldn't commit to taking carriage fees from cable and satellite providers and putting all that money into local programming. It turns out they were ready to make just such a commitment.

That certainly makes the TV people look better. But what guarantee would we have that they wouldn't take back their existing funding to local stations now that this new source of revenue is available to them?

Bye Bye was wrong

You hate to still be talking about this, but the judgment is in about Radio-Canada's Bye-Bye: It really was racist. The CRTC passed on complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council and asked them to judge the show. The CBSC normally rules only on private broadcasting, but the CRTC asked them for their advice (if anything, this shows that there's no reason the CBSC shouldn't also deal with complaints about public broadcasting).

The CBSC's ruling dismissed most of the complaints (though some only barely), including those about jokes on anglos, the poor, immigrants, dépanneur owners, Indian call centre operators, Julie Couillard, Céline Dion, politicians, and a single complaint saying they were unfair to GM. It also said that the show did not go over the line in its treatment of Nathalie Simard, and didn't even hint at the abuse she suffered at the hands of Guy Cloutier, father of Bye Bye hotst Véronique Cloutier.

The council did rule that three things crossed the line:

  • Jokes against blacks, particularly the sketch involving Denis Lévesque and Barack Obama as well as comments from Jean-François Mercier about Obama being easier to shoot in front of the White House.
  • The portrayal of violence against women in a sketch involving the family of Patrick Roy.
  • The rebroadcast of the show the next evening without viewer advisories.

The racist jokes, the council said, were gratuitous and abusive. Though Radio-Canada, the show's producers, its writers and its performers did not intend to foster racism and intended for the comments to be ironic, the council ruled that the context didn't make this sufficiently clear, and the comments could easily have been taken at face value. It brought up a number of previous cases to support its view that comedic irony isn't a blank cheque to make racist comments.

It's hard not to agree with the council's well-thought-out decision. Bye Bye didn't intend to be racist, but it did intend to shock. And when you're spouting racist comments just to shock people, how is that different from just being racist?

This decision is worth reading if only for the words "a rather cartoonish rabbit-like act of intercourse."

Technically, this is just a recommendation to the CRTC. It is up to the commission to decide if it agrees, and if so what kind of sanction it will impose. Normally, private broadcasters are required to air a notice of the decision to viewers. We'll see if the CRTC orders Radio-Canada to do the same.

More power for radio

It's going to be a bit easier to listen to some out-of-town radio stations thanks to some CRTC approvals of power increases:

  • CKOY 104.5 FM in Sherbrooke, the sister station to Montreal's CKOI, gets a huge power boost to up to 50,000 Watts. Of course, that doesn't mean it'll be easy to hear, especially with CBC Radio One's second 100W transmitter at 104.7 FM in the west end. But if you're in the Eastern townships and had trouble hearing the station, you should have much less of that now.
  • CJLM 103.5 FM in Joliette gets a modest boost from 3,000 to 4,500 Watts, which will help people on the north side of the island and on the north shore.
  • For those on the south side, they'll be hearing FM 103.3 in Longueuil, which in the same decision saw its allowed power output grow more than five-fold. It's still a low-power community radio station, but maybe now it won't disappear off the dial when I hit the Plateau.

Haitian station wants change of frequency

CJWI, a Haitian AM station currently on 1610 AM, wants to change its frequency to 1410, which is where CFMB used to be. The move would put CJWI in the regular, non-extended AM band, allowing people with older radios to hear it. It also wants to increase its output power from 1kW to 10kW, and relocate its transmitter.

Rogers, small cable companies get nannied

The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance asked the CRTC to intervene in stalled negotiations it was having on behalf of small cable companies across the country with Rogers over its SportsNet service. The CRTC has the power to intervene in these cases, but it prefers not to. However, since regulations require some cable companies to carry SportsNet (and will until new regulations take effect in 2011 that deregulate the cable sports channels), it decided it must step in here. Details are kept in confidence to protect both businesses, so that's about all we know.

Slice wants less CanCon

Canwest-owned Slice channel has noticed that its Canadian content requirements are much higher than what other specialty channels require, so it wants to get the same deal. It's asking that its CanCon minimum programming requirement be dropped from 82.5% to 60%, and that it be forced to spend only 45% instead of 71% of revenues on Canadian programming.

City wants less CanCon movies

Citytv has asked the CRTC for a change in license that would eliminate a requirement to air 100 hours of Canadian movies each year - which works out to about a movie a week. Rogers (which owns City now) argues that it is the only conventional broadcaster that has this requirement and it shouldn't be singled out. Canadian movie-makers say Rogers has pulled a bait and switch, praising Canadian movies when it bought the network and now quietly wanting to get rid of them.

Want Al-Jazeera?

The CRTC is opening up the can of worms about allowing Al-Jazeera English into the country. The commission had previously approved the Arabic-language version of the network, with unique requirements that distributors monitor and censor its content, something that requires far too much work for the cable and satellite companies.

The commission is considering adding the English channel to eligible foreign networks that cable and satellite can add to their lineups, but it wants comments from Canadians who might be opposed to it. They specifically want evidence of abusive comments, with tapes if possible.

More specialty channels

Conventional TV may be dying, but specialty channels are exploding like nobody's business. The CRTC is holding a hearing on July 21 where it will listen to proposals for new networks:

  • Black Entertainment Television Canada (English and French) - self-explanatory, I would imagine.
  • Reality TV - A Canwest proposal for reality shows, DIY programs and scripted reality shows. This network was originally approved by the CRTC in 2005, but expired before Canwest could launch it, forcing them to start over from scratch.
  • AMET-TV, an African and Afro-Caribbean-themed channel that carries programming in English (70%), French (20%) and African languages (10%)
  • New Tang Dynasty Television Canada HD, a generalist network mainly in Mandarin but also other Chinese languages.

CPAC wants to be patriotic

CPAC, the politics channel that carries House of Commons proceedings among other things, is asking for permission to expand its boundaries on July 1 of each year. It wants to add three programming categories which would allow it to carry musical performance, variety, entertainment and related programming from Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill and elsewhere. A reasonable request if I've ever heard one, though I don't think there are similarly specific exceptions to such rules on other channels.

A bold move

The CBC was in the process of getting slapped by the CRTC because it was violating its license with respect to Bold, a specialty channel. Formerly Country Canada, its license says it should air programming directed toward rural Canadians. But since then it's basically been a dumping ground for whatever content the network wants to put there.

After the CRTC called a hearing, the CBC waved the white flag. It has proposed a license amendment, though one that would keep the rural focus.

Good news, bad news for Olympics

Following a request from the CRTC chairman, CTV and the CBC have been in talks about using CBC stations to broadcast French-language Olympics coverage for the tiny, tiny portion of Canadians who:

  • are unilingual francophones
  • don't live in Quebec or within range of a TQS station
  • don't have cable or satellite TV service
  • don't have broadband Internet access
  • AND want to watch the Olympics in French on TV

You'd think this number would be so small as to be negligible (about 10,000 apparently fit the first three criteria), but in the spirit of political correctness, CTV (which owns the broadcast rights and is part of a giant consortium that's covering the games) is looking at using some CBC stations to retransmit its TQS/RDS Olympics coverage over the air.

The problem is that the CBC isn't crazy about donating the stations and getting nothing in return. Specifically, the debate is over ad revenue: CTV wants to keep it all (minus some compensation for what they would have had with their regular programming), and CBC thinks that's crazy.

On the plus side, Corus has joined the giant consortium, which currently includes CTV (with TSN and RDS), TQS, Rogers and APTN. Corus will have Olympics coverage (though it doesn't sound like much) on CKAC Sports as well as updates on CKOI, Info 690 and 98.5FM in Montreal.

In other news

And finally, not that anyone doubted it would happen, but the CRTC has allowed CBC Television and Télévision Radio-Canada to continue to operate for another year.

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CTV Olympics site goes live

February 10, 2009 – 1:46 am| Posted in Media, Sports, Web design
ctvolympics.ca

ctvolympics.ca

More than a year before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics begin, CTV has launched CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca, where it will have coverage of the games in English and French. (This pretty much seals that RDS, not TQS, will be the primary French-language network.)

This is the first time in over a decade that CTV will be the Canadian Olympic broadcaster, and so much has changed since the early 90s (this thing called the Internet, for example).

For its first Olympic website, it does look pretty impressive. That said, I couldn't get the video player to work (it's Microsoft Silverlight-based, though I have that installed), and this is what happened when I tried to play with the past medal count widget:

How dare you try to compare more than four countries!

How dare you try to compare more than four countries? Behold our grammatically-incorrect error message!

Fortunately they have a year to sort that kind of stuff out.

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