Well I have been watching the ceremonies on both CBC and NBC and they normally have had commercial breaks at the same time. However a few breaks have been on one network at different times than the other.

According to my my top five trending feature on Bell Fibe after 2pm CBC was was in the first position, followed by TSN which is picking up CBC's coverage along with Sportsnet number in 3rd spot. CP24 came in fourth and NBC was showing up at number 5.  5:10 this afternoon it is still CBC in first spot, CBC News Network 2nd, with Olympic coverage, CP24 was next, TSN Olympic Opening at 4th spot with CBC's Olympic coverage and CNN with the Lede and Jake Tapper in fifth spot.  

It's the Olympics of Commercials.

Too many ads or not, a lot of eyes were on the Opening. 

16 million viewers in Canada tune in for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 Opening Ceremony

Doesn't Gem offer both a free version and a paid version? Why not go ad free for the paid version? 

I "pay" for CBC Gem.  The so-called "Olympic" streams of live and playback programming are loaded with commercials.  Sometimes on CBC's news channel there is an annoying graphic with a countdown clock that comes on in place of commercials, and frequently the commercials appear - notwithstanding the fact that I'm logged in as a paid subscriber.   We PVR'd the opening ceremonies and fast forwarded many of the commercials, but considerable content of the opening ceremonies was disrupted by advertising.  On the positive side, Adrian Arsenault and her co-host seemed to be well-informed and did not talk constantly. They paused their commentary at critical moments. That was always my gripe with Peter Mansbridge.  He couldn't stop talking.  I think he loved hearing his own voice. 
 

I didn't notice because I usually record and watch 1 hr. later so I can skip ads.   What I didn't like today was coverage of a disputed goal for the USA against Canada in Woman's Hockey,.

They usually re-run the disputed goal a few times slowly or from alternate angles on full screen, but this time they ran it once on full screen and subsequent ones were on a 3 screen split with one showing the replay, one showing the refs hunched over a monitor and one showing the coach standing still staring across the ice with the screen size of the replay about 1/3 my screen size with big fat borders around it. 

 The important content was almost unviewable because of the other crap they put up.   It was worse than those split screens for ads.

I wonder if it's to do with world feed because it's not something TSN would do with their hockey broadcasting experience.      I hope they abandon its use.

Back to the original post, the CBC received well over 1,000 complaints from viewers who believe they all but destroyed coverage of the Opening Ceremonies by the constant ad interruptions.

But those in charge beg to differ. 

CBC shouldn’t brush off the over 1,000 complaints it received about ads during Olympics opening ceremony 

Thanks. I knew there had to be a reason to pay for something that is otherwise free. From the sound of it, even a dollar is too much!

I have been watching more of the Olympics in the evening and a little early morning.  So far the coverage on CBC, TSN and Sportsnet has been fine IMO.  As mentioned a few times, the drone cameras are giving fantastic shots in many competitions.  More on the drones from CBC...The buzz of Milano-Cortina? Olympic drones offer dizzying perspectives | CBC Sports

Binson Echorec wrote:

tvguy wrote:

GEM is problematic...I only have it for access to CBC News Channel.  I don't get it on Bell.

I have one of the lower-tier Bell Fibe packages ("Better", I think it's called) and CBCNN is included.

CBCNN is one of a few mandatory channels that service providers have to include on all packages, I think tvguy is missing something as it should be included

tvguy wrote:

GEM is problematic. It constantly "loses" my login credentials.  Other streaming services log me in on all devices without problems. If it wasn't publicly funded, with all the glitches it would be out of business....but I digress Lots of glitches, pictures freeze.  Not my internet connection!!!  I only have it for access to CBC News Channel.  I don't get it on Bell.  I think the (retail) cost is around $5.99 per month but every year I get 6 months for around $1 per month and then cancel at the end of the trial. I am not aware of any shows that I get with the subscription that are not available free.   There is a category called "live" which are CBC local stations across the country.  I'm not certain whether some of the local CBC stations are available on "free" GEM.  But certainly there are commercials on the "live" channels.  I don't watch enough of GEM video on demand to tell if they are commercial free.  There's very little there that interests me.  I will cancel when the $1 a month offer ends.   The offer usually returns around Black Friday.  I'm now finding that the "free" CBC news channels on FAST channels meet my information needs.

And you can only imagine the online reaction when this happened at the start of the arguably most important Olympic event in all of Canada.

Team Canada's Olympic men's hockey game starts with an outage on CBC Gem. Fans were understandably outraged: 'Whole nation is trying to watch'

LOSat wrote:

Actually CBCNN is no longer a must carry in English markets in Canada.  That changed a long time ago.  Many BDU's do include it all their packages.  I believe it is only mandatory in Quebec.

That’s not what the CRTC website says; nor the “starter” package on Bell’s website which was brought up by the poster

RadioActive wrote:

The reason? Too many ads and not enough opening ceremony.

CBC’s opening ceremony broadcast flooded with ads, leaving Olympics viewers frustrated

CBC got roasted for the interruptions of the opening of the Games. Now it's NBC's turn at the end. 

Fans Aren’t Happy With NBC Over Its Olympics Closing Ceremony Coverage