TORONTO – CTV executive Phil King may be in charge of programming for the country’s largest conventional network, but it’s clear that sports are as big a part of that as are the slate of new fall shows that the network announced Thursday.
Speaking with Cartt.ca prior to Bell Media’s ‘upfront’ event, King, who broke in to the business at TSN before that network was acquired by CTV, admitted that the next round of NHL hockey and Olympic broadcast rights are never far from his mind.
“The (Canadian NHL) rights discussion is still two years away, but I find it amusing that everyone is talking about it now”, he said, confirming that Saturday night hockey on CTV is a distinct possibility. “We’re the only media company in a position with all the assets to be able to do it: the CTV conventional network is four times bigger than CBC; we have a sports network (TSN) that draws audiences bigger than CBC; we have a RDS, our French network that also gets massive audiences; we have TSN2, which is now big; we have TSN Radio; we have CTV Two, and of course, we have all the Bell platforms, so I think that we’d be well positioned to benefit from increased content and be a real player in it.”
But while it remains to be seen whether parent company Bell Media can wrest those rights away from CBC, who has held them for the last 60 years, CTV/TSN will have access to more premium sports programming once its joint bid with Rogers for a majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment – owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors and Toronto FC – has been finalized. The $1.32 billion deal has already received assent from the Competition Bureau but remains subject to league and CRTC approvals.
“Because of existing contracts, (programming) likely won’t change much in the next few years”, King added. “But when those contracts expire, that content will be split 50/50 which really means that Sportsnet will give us some of their Leafs games and we’ll give them some of our Raptors games.”
King said that it would be “premature” to discuss whether MLSE’s sports channels – Leafs TV, NBA TV Canada and Gol TV Canada – will be shuttered or added to either Bell Media’s or Rogers’ suite of sports networks. The two companies, however, have petitioned the CRTC for control of the three networks.
And then there are the Canadian broadcast rights for 2014 Sochi and 2016 Rio de Janiero Olympic Games to consider. King confirmed that while the International Olympic Committee has turned down two bids from the CTV/CBC consortium, it is preparing to bid again.
“It seems to be, and I don’t believe this, but many people do including, perhaps, the IOC, that there’s a huge advantage to waiting to see how the NHL situation plays out i.e. will the NHL players play in Sochi or not”, he said, noting that issue will most likely be part of the collective bargaining agreement discussions between the NHL and its players this fall. “I can tell you that (decision) has a material amount on the rights, particularly in this country. We’re prepared to try again, though not today.”
