TORONTO – Happy 25th Birthday TSN.
The self proclaimed “Canada’s Sports Leader” is marking the event with a cross-country promotional tour, the launch of e-store TSNShop.ca, the release of a coffee table book called TSN 25 Years, a TSN25 micro-site on TSN.ca, and the debut of a revamped on-air look for its flagship daily show Sportscentre.
So what’s changed since the station launched from its modest facilities in Don Mills, ON back on September 1, 1984?
“Pretty much everything”, laughs president Phil King in an interview with Cartt.ca.
King, a chartered accountant by trade, started with TSN in 1989 in its programming department. He recalls at that time, conventional networks Global TV, CTV and CBC were “the only game in town”, but noted that they still had to make a variety of non-sports programming available to their audiences, as well.
“Now we have a number of direct competitors”, King continued. “There’s (Rogers) Sportsnet of course, the Score, CBC is still strong in sports, and the diginets take a bite from our audiences. But there’s a lot of competition from the on-line world and digital media now, too.”
King said that during his tenure, his most memorable highlight was the day that the network wrestled away the broadcast rights to the CFL from CBC. TSN and its French counterpart RDS signed a five year partnership with the CFL beginning in 2008 for all regular season games, divisional playoffs and the Grey Cup.
“That was a game-changing day”, he recalls. “That is an immense source of pride to me and for this network. That we could bid and win the biggest Canadian sports event in this country was a big, big, moment.”
So how will TSN, now seen in approximately 9 million homes across the country, outpace its competition?
“We have to continue to get better”, King said. “In this time of the evolution of digital media, you really need to consider how you connect with your fans”, noting the network’s popular website, the launch of TSN2 and its foray into mobile content.
“We will continue to get closer with the Chum-owned sports stations, we have an iPhone application in development – we have our CFL games on iTunes now, and we’re working with our BDUs on streaming content. We’ll keep trying new things, and we’re told pretty quick if it’s a good idea. And we have to be there first.”
