Montreal Sports Weekly on ICI.
I had two things waiting on my PVR this morning: A notification that future episodes of Sportsnet Central Montreal have been deleted from the City Montreal schedule, and a recording of Montreal Sports Weekly, a show I happened to notice on the ICI Television schedule as I was looking for information about its new arrangement with OMNI.
You can imagine my surprise when I hit play.
Montreal Sports Weekly is a half-hour local sports panel discussion show hosted by Elias Makos with local journalists sitting in high chairs in the City Montreal studio.
Sounds kind of familiar.
Makos hasn’t said anything publicly about this show, and his panelists — SN Central Montreal regulars Jeremy Filosa and Sean Farrell — haven’t talked about it either, which seems odd, so I’m not entirely sure what the deal is (the credits say only “COPYRIGHT 2017”). It could mean an announcement is coming, or it could mean that this is just a pilot or something and no one wants to get anyone’s hopes up.
Even the description of the show on the electronic program guide — “takes audiences beyond the game highlights for an in-depth look at the city’s professional and amateur teams, along with athlete profiles and feature stories” — is identical to the one first announced for Montreal Connected in 2013, with the exception that it’s described as an “English-language program” for clarity.
ICI’s business model involves working with independent producers who buy airtime and create shows that they can sell their own advertising for.
Not sure what they wanna do with that yet.
— Jeremy Filosa ? (@JeremyFilosa) September 2, 2017
The first airing at 9am Saturday featured the same public service announcements and ICI house ads that generally fill the airtime. If this is really a project with a future, the show is going to need sponsors if it’s going to survive. So if you were upset that Sportsnet Central Montreal was cancelled, now is the time to get people to start advertising and supporting this.
This isn’t the first time someone has tried an English local Montreal sports talk show on ICI. Adam Reid had a show called Reid Between the Lines, an episode of which can be seen here. He’s since moved on to The Lineup, a sports game show on WatchMojo, which features some local media celebrities.
I’ll update this as I get more information about this show, assuming it doesn’t disappear as mysteriously and suddenly as it appeared.
Montreal Sports Weekly airs Saturdays at 9am and 6pm, Mondays at 2:30pm, Tuesdays at 11am, Wednesdays at 4pm, and Thursdays at 3pm and 9pm on ICI.
So what was on the debut episode of Montreal Sports Weekly on ICI Montreal(or was just a repeat of the final episode Sportsnet Central Montreal)?
The three panelists talked about the Canadiens’ lineup, the Impact’s upcoming game against Chicago, the Air Canada Centre’s name change, the idea of renting jerseys, and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ hiring screwup, topics very similar to the last episode of Sportsnet Central Montreal. The format is identical.
Why can’t someone replicate Ron Reusch’s Sportsnight 360? That show was a cash cow.
Nice to see they have decided to keep the show on another channel.
Fan of the format. . They need a better host. Makos is great at the quirky and tech segments – informative and passionate.. But just because he is a sports fan does not make him the ideal Sports show host. Recast necessary for success. His Barry Wilson Postscript” style, editorial Sportscentral goodbye was hard to stomach – even more so now knowing that this revamped show was in the works.