After being dead, then maybe-not-dead, then absolutely positively dead (as I tried to explain previously), the Hockey Night in Canada theme is once again maybe-there’s-hope, as the CBC brings in a lawyer to maybe hammer out a new deal.
It shows, I think, that the CBC vastly underestimated people’s connection with the song, and wants to do everything it can to save it.
UPDATE: Looks like it’s closer to dead again. CBC negotiators aren’t very optimistic.
UPDATE: CTV has just announced it secured rights to the song and plans to use it on TSN (and RDS). Wow.
UPDATE (June 12): Thank you Stephen Colbert. (CTV owns the Canadian rights to the Colbert Report through the CTV and Comedy networks, so he’s actually being half-serious about licensing the song.)
The CBC has vastly underestimated people’s connection with everything on the show. This is the fourth time in probably about as many years as they’ve been burned when they tried to tinker with HNIC…
First, there was a contract dispute with Ron MacLean that became front-page news. Then, there was word that Don Cherry’s perpetual one-year contracts might not be renewed. Then, they ditched Chris Cuthbert who had been up until that time, the presumptive heir to Bob Cole. (With Cuthbert subsequently being picked up by TSN for a much heftier salary.)
Nancy Lee mismanaged CBC Sports during her entire reign there. I had hope for Scott Moore when he arrived and started, you know, actually bringing new content to the ceeb (Raptors basketball, MLS and World Cup soccer), but he’s proving now that when it comes to understanding the country’s attachment to HNIC, he knows as little as Lee did.
I’m cold to the idea of a national icon resting in the hands of a private corporation, but on the up side I assume this means French Canada will get to hear it again, when watching games on RDS.
Suddenly I don’t want to work for the CBC anymore. Incompetence, anyone?
CBC was in a total no-win situation. If they matched or surpassed the $3-million or so that CTV paid, all the non-sports fans would be screaming at them for “wasting” taxpayers’ money.