The CBC gets a haircut, Part II

In light of last week's sports cuts at the CBC, two more questions have been raised. Okay, I raised them, but others may have been thinking about them.

Here's one: Considering that the public network is supposed to pay special attention to underserved (amateur) sports, why did Hockey Night In Canada emerge basically unscathed, except for maybe a three-jacket limit for Don Cherry? The other is: What's the status of the proposed CBC digital sports channel, CBC SportsPlus?

As always, I aim to supply answers to my own questions.

On the first point, CBC Sports boss Scott Moore says the fat has already been cut at HNIC through travel reductions and behind-the-scenes stuff. In fact, he says HNIC came in under budget after trimming.

But what about all those regional telecasts on Saturday nights? Surely, they don't help the bottom line considering how much they add to costs.

Well, Moore says, in fact they do add to the bottom line. ``The regional broadcasts have added from 100,000 to 300,000 viewers a night," he says. ``Without the extra Montreal Canadiens games, we would have less revenue because of lower ratings."

As for the planned digital channel, which was to show a variety of Canadian sports including a lot of amateur stuff, Moore says it's been on hold since the fall awating further decisions from the CRTC. That's the same thing the Canadian Olympic Committee has done with its channel application.

But CBC's plan is to launch some version of the channel by the summer of 2010, preferably before the World Cup so it will have somewhere to put all those games.

"We are still hoping to find a workable business plan and we still hope that we find a way to launch a service by World Cup next year," he says. "It may not be as ambitious as we initially had planned, but we think it’s important."

How it plans to do that is a mystery. If amateur sports coverage has been cut to deal with a budget shortfall, how do you justify spending more money on a channel that's destined to lose money for at least five years? Supposedly, CBC has a plan on that one.

CBC cuts hit sports

Though sports produces a lot of CBC's revenue, it didn't escape today's cuts aimed at overcoming the corporation's $171 million shortfall.

Gone is the radio show The Inside Track, a CBC staple for decades. At this point, the CBC is saying only that the following sports will face reductions or cutbacks in coverage of alpine skiing, world aquatics, track and field, international figure skating and CONCACAF soccer. The depth of those cuts will be made clearer soon.

As for personnel, all the CBC is saying at this point is that 313 jobs will be cut in sports, entertainment, current affairs and sales.

CBC tees off on women's golf

There's no doubt that CBC Sports is about to feel the effects of the big knife hanging over the corporation's head, but that isn't stopping the network from adding properties.

CBC has signed a three-year deal to televise all four rounds of the LPGA Canadian Women's Open golf tournament, starting in September. The first two round will be aired live on CBC's digital channel, Bold, with the final rounds on the main network.

Announcers haven't been named yet, mainly because CBC hasn't done golf since Don Cherry was still coaching.

Tournament officials are no doubt hoping CBC can draw a bigger audience than Rogers Sportsnet did the past few years.

The Moore the merrier at CBC

Now here's a coincidence, I thought. The head of advertising at CBC television is Scott Moore, the same name as the guy who's head of sports. What are the odds?

However, after some exhaustive investigative reporting I discovered they are in fact the same guy, although Scott Moore the TV sports executive has been replaced temporarily by David Masse. Temporary is apparently the key word, as Moore is expected to give up selling ads and return to sports in a year or so.

So how did this all happen?

Apparently, ad sales at the Mother Corporation have been falling for some time, as they have everywhere else in the traditional media world. So CBC made the guy behind the wheel of the leaky ship walk the plank and decided it needed fresh thinking. Since Moore had never dealt in the ad world before, the CBC must have figured it couldn't get much fresher than that.

Since sports (read the NHL) supplies most of the CBC's revenue and a good chunk of its audience, I guess it figured a little sports thinking might not be a bad thing. But is the NHL still a money-maker in these tough times? After all, the CBC is paying a lot more for NHL rights than it was a couple of years ago and although ratings are up, ad revenue is down.

But Moore the Ad Man says that despite the hard times and an overpriced rights package,  the NHL is still a money-maker. He knows this because he used to be Moore the Sports Man.

``I can honestly say we will make money this fiscal (quarter) with the NHL," Moore says. ``How that moves forward for next fiscal, anybody can guess." In fact, the playoffs are a bit of concern, but everything is these days.