I wonder how many other countries will be taking a similar broadcast approach to the CBC's. Perhaps the Mother Corporation could provide on site coverage only for events where Canada has an actual chance of winning a medal.

The article says however that CBC will have staff in mixed zone interview areas in every sport.  So like in Paris four years ago and in Beijing during COVID in 2022 CBC, like most broadcasters had many of their play by play commentators at a home studio.  NBC does this as well, not to the extent of CBC but they do the same thing. 

The real test will be to see how much the cameras focus on Canadian athletes and the interviews after the game or race.  Last Olympics they had a lot of interviews with our athletes right after, so they obviously did have a team for key sports and had some sort of arrangement to focus on the Canadian athletes that had a chance of a medal. 

I wonder if any staff from TSN or Sportsnet go to the Olympics since coverage is shared with CBC.  Usually CBC does an excellent job covering the games with many more live events.  In the past NBC has been criticized for too much pre-produced packaged segments when they could have broadcast an event live.  But NBC's broadcasts are slicker with in depth profiles of US athletes and flow well because of this.

 

The CBC pioneered remote coverage at the Athens Olympics in 2004, and actually attracted interest from NBC at that time.  All camera feeds that are available to the broadcast pool are relayed back, as well as any unilateral cameras. So it's actually possible for the commentators to see video that isn't actually on the outgoing produced feed. It saves a ton of money by not having to set up studios and control rooms on location, along with all the staffing costs for air fare, accommodation, and meals. All the feeds can be recorded on servers in Toronto and Montreal, and that gives great flexibility in producing both the live and delayed programming.

Shorty Wave wrote:

What total BS! The CBC gets $1.4 billion a year from the Feds for starters, plus Carney gave them $150 million on top of that in November I believe.

The CBC has known for years that they were covering this year’s Winter Olympics and should have budgeted accordingly. As mentioned above, if the commentators are working off a monitor they will most definitely miss things off camera and will provide fairly pedestrian commentary. Plus in this day and age, you do not need a huge production team to pull this off.

It’s situation like this that get me pissed off with the Corp, they get tons of our tax money yet skimp where they should be putting their best foot forward, especially for such an event. Give the money to Corus next time I say!!

I disagree, this is a responsible use of taxpayer dollars. And it’s not like CBC did this at the last second. Could you imagine the outcry over the amount of money spent if the CBC actually sent every single person to the Olympics every year??

ED1 wrote:

The CBC and NBC have been doing this for years. NBC’s Olympics booths were set up in Studio 8H for one of the previous Olympics.

They appear to be doing that again because the next live Saturday Night Live isn't until Feb. 28.

The Globe & Mail's Cathal Kelly praises the CBCs fair Olympic coverage, as opposed to the sometimes jingoistic approach to the Games on U.S. TV. And he thinks viewers notice. 

"As best I can tell, the Olympics is the only time people watch the CBC in a concentrated way any more. I guess they make shows, but I couldn’t name you one."

On the global Olympic broadcast stage, Canada gets it right
 

Aytononline wrote:

I think it really matters what sport we are talking about. I think the CBC should have more then just hockey for a full team on site, but for the sports where you can't see everything and rely on monitors for most of it, announcers might just as well be in Toronto. I don't see the difference between using a monitor here or somewhere else.

I understand the argument about what happens when the On Air staff are not on camera, what stories are they getting, and how they put that information into what they do. Having a general assignment reporter is not the same as having someone who has put there whole life into a particular sport. The questions that are asked are going to be different.

The minute the accountants put a dollar value on each sport, and look at the return on investment. It sounds harsh, but I understand the decision the CBC has made for the most part.

I agree completely. It’s perfectly rational not to send someone to look at a monitor there when they can do it here

Andyp wrote:

The other factor limiting live coverage especially for these Olympics is the number of venues and the distance between them.

Apparently during the opening ceremonies some teams will be missing a larger than normal number of participants.  Since there are so many scattered venues, some a long distance from where the opening ceremonies will be held, it isn't feasible for some to attend the opening.  

DX wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Andyp wrote:

The other factor limiting live coverage especially for these Olympics is the number of venues and the distance between them.

Apparently during the opening ceremonies some teams will be missing a larger than normal number of participants.  Since there are so many scattered venues, some a long distance from where the opening ceremonies will be held, it isn't feasible for some to attend the opening.  

Calgary as permanent Winter Olympics host could solve this and put an end to the bloated hosting budgets and purpose-built facilities going to waste after the event.

Some of the venues would still need to be moved elsewhere, most likely into the mountains that are about 1 hour away from the city. The old Olympic park in Calgary is too small for what the winter games need, and sadly some of the old ski jumps have been torn down.