I tend to disagree.

There are 7 CBC stations that carry the different games. Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Toronto.

Technically speaking you'd think you'd need 3 feeds to get access to all the games. But I think there could be different combinations, and you'd still end up missing games.

To expect a carrier to carry all the cbc channels in HD, for 6 hours of original content per week, is just lame.

At least if CBC only purchases the rights for the regions that they broadcast in, you could watch the games on centre ice. Instead the buy them and don't air them. So its blacked out.

edit: CBC online streaming is pretty low quality. Gamecentre Live streaming is so much better. CBC online streaming doesn't quite cut it compared to HD (or even SD)
I blame CBC. I can understand why cableco's wouldn't want to waste their money on timeshifting a bunch of CBC channels.

That said. If a cablecowants to own the SD rights. Is there anything from stopping them from making a temp channel for Saturday nights and airing the other games? Or would they have to pay full carriage fees for adding the HD coverage?

I have a few thoughts on all this.

1. Sattelite. If CBC has national rights for games, then allow users across Canada to tune into one of their satelite feeds for their game of choice.
(mentioned by an earlier post? C-band sattelite?)

2. Pay per View?
What if Cable Co's / Providors / BDU's across the nation and the CBC negotiate a deal to allow viewers to view a game of choice via Pay Per View?

ex. Would a Real Leaf Fan be willing to pay a few bucks to watch the LEAFS Saturday Night game live in HD using pay per view? - if that game is not available easily otherwise in their area? CBC - National Rights holder - would get a cut of that.


3. About "Center Ice" package - one would think that if someone *PAID* for a "Center Ice" package - they would be able to get most / if not all games. Otherwise, what's the point? So some solution should be developed for "Center Ice" as well.

Not sure what it could be. Perhaps rules that would give "Center Ice" priority/permission to show games - regardless of "National Rights".

Or - requiring the CBC to be paid a (defined/regulated) fee by "Center Ice", in order that CI may carry the games.

There seems to be alot of this sort of FRAGMENTATION going on - generally - and it just frustrates the viewers / the fans.

Question:
Who did what with who's Cat ?

Translation: How can I watch that now? where? when? how? what equipment? what package? what channel? what cost? what quality?

Answer: You can't get there from here.

... Come'on ... This is Canada, and we're talking hockey. A few solutions should be found for all this.

If you have Centre Ice on Rogers, you do get most of the out-of-market HNIC games (not all, it depends if someone at Rogers is asleep at the switch).

How is Rogers able to do it and not anyone else?

2. Pay per View?
What if Cable Co's / Providors / BDU's across the nation and the CBC negotiate a deal to allow viewers to view a game of choice via Pay Per View?

ex. Would a Real Leaf Fan be willing to pay a few bucks to watch the LEAFS Saturday Night game live in HD using pay per view? - if that game is not available easily otherwise in their area? CBC - National Rights holder - would get a cut of that.


They tried that a few years ago for other teams and it was discontinued. There's only a couple key games a year that people will pay for in a PPV model, nobody is going to pay for Ottawa vs Phoenix.

The other problem then becomes that the key games are the ones that the broadcasters also want. CBC and TSN won't pay the NHL millions for Ottawa vs Phoenix either, they want Ottawa vs Toronto. The broadcast rights are worth more then the PPV ones, so that leaves the PPV games as the secondary ones that don't sell.

Center Ice isn't a solution for people who won't pay a fortune just to watch one team, whereas CBC's split coverage does work for those people (who seem to be largely ignored in this conversation).

If cable companies such as Shaw can have a 3 or 6 hour window every Saturday to show HNIC in Punjabi for free to all customers, there is no reason they can't add this feature for the other untelevised games.

The broadcast rights are worth more then the PPV ones, so that leaves the PPV games as the secondary ones that don't sell.

OK. So for those popular matchups - the ones people would pay to watch - say CBC has the national broadcast rights.

CBC does an analysis and where they do NOT broadcast that game - offer it to those providors as PPV - to widen the audience. That should only increase coverage (keep some fans happy) and add some revenue (to both the providor and CBC).

[ I only see PPV as adding coverage and revenue - advantageous for all: Viewer/Fan, Providor, and National Rights holder. Even if it is only for the most popular matchups. Share the bandwidth and the PPV revenues ]

The "Time Shifting" solution mentioned earlier may work in some cases.
Ex. with a digital cable box, and time shifting package that offers CBC affiliates from all across Canada - you may catch a game that really interests you that way.


Now I'll tell you a little personal story.

In the past, I was working in Montreal. Had my own solo appartment. Was too busy working alot and did not have alot of time to watch TV anyway. So I did not think it was worth it to pay to have my own cable tv hookup at my solo appartment. Mostly I just slept and ate at my appartment anyway. I had WABBIT ears and picked up a few over the air channels on a small portable TV to watch some news etc. sometimes - and that was enough for the solo appartment.

But on weekends, I really liked to watch the Formula 1 F1 race.
The races are generally on Sunday, every second week.
Alot of them are shown live on Sunday morning round 8AM Eastern time - since alot of them are from European countries.

Seen usually in Montreal on RDS - Riseau des Sports? French Sports Network ch. - which is only on CABLE TV - not over the air.

So if you don't have cable at home - you are out of luck for F1.

EXCEPT THAT ...

I learned that some of the CAFE's / Bars / Bistros in Montreal (ex. on St. Denis street near Catherine St in the downtown), open up early Sunday morning, and have a large screen TV and put the F1 race on.

Also, on Crescent St in the downtown - is like a hotspot for F1 fans to gather and watch the races. Same idea.

Also, I noticed that the main TRAIN station in downtown "underground" of downtown Montreal (which is open 24/7 due to train schedules) in the back where they have some food courts (nice ones), tables and chairs, and have a couple TV's with RDS - Riseau des Sports - playing 24/7. The food vendors are not open at that time - but all is fairly quiet in the Train station at that time. So you've got tables and chairs and the F1 race playing - free of charge. And you are connected directly to one of the Metro/subway stations through the underground system of tunnels of Montreal.

And it seems to be a little of a Montreal tradition - for some to get up Sunday morning - go get your coffee and breakfast, whatever, in one of these places, and watch the F1 race at the same time. How utterly convenient.

Marvelous! Excellent Tradition! I shall join in on that ... Merci.

So I would just get up early enough, ride the subway into the downtown, no problems, no hassles, and watch some of the F1 races that way.

Then Bum around Downtown Montreal a little more afterwards ... then go home later.

All with the excellent subway system of Montreal "LE METRO", pas de probleme merci. I had my monthly subway/Metro pass anyway - which I used to go back and forth to work - and all over the place - exploring all of Montreal and the "underground" with such unimaginable convenience.

So for Hockey fans or LEAF fans across the country - what about a Sports Bar somewhere Saturday night which might show the LEAFS game for you all?

Get a gang together, call a BAR, tell them a bunch of us will come if you put on the LEAFS game (via their satelite system or cable box or whatever).

Start a tradition.

Or search and try and find the Sports BAR that does that already (if any).

Try and go there.

Just an idea ...

(ha ha ... or else - go bang on the door of the local CBC affiliate, ask them if you can CRASH their studio, and if they can let you watch one of their "FEEDS" - cause darn it ... "we wanna watch the LEAFS GAME somehow tonight" )

OK. So for those popular matchups - the ones people would pay to watch - say CBC has the national broadcast rights.

CBC does an analysis and where they do NOT broadcast that game - offer it to those providors as PPV - to widen the audience. That should only increase coverage (keep some fans happy) and add some revenue (to both the providor and CBC).

[ I only see PPV as adding coverage and revenue - advantageous for all: Viewer/Fan, Providor, and National Rights holder. Even if it is only for the most popular matchups. Share the bandwidth and the PPV revenues ]


I still don't see how that works. If it's Toronto/Montreal playing, CBC is going to want to show that everywhere that has a lot of fans of either team. It'd only be on PPV in areas where CBC is showing another game, and they're showing another game because people locally want to watch that (like say Winnipeg vs anybody in Manitoba). How many people are going to pay for that other game considering it's essentially limited to Manitoba and maybe the rest of the West?

Not very many. They also have to get the games in place on PPV, give the NHL a cut, the cable companies a cut, etc. It's already been demonstrated as a failed business model by the teams that tried it before.

Maybe you could do it online if they offered true HD quality feeds for people who want to watch hockey but don't subscribe to cable, but that's about it.

Yah I don't think I'd like the PPV idea. I already pay for centre ice.

I was surprise to hear rogers can carry the HNIC games on the centre ice channels? Not only do most Canadian cable stations have to black them out, but the NHL also blacks them out on GameCentre Live (the internet streaming version of centre ice).

Whats sort of sad, was in '07 when I first got HD, my local cable provider would air the other cbc games for free on a centre ice channel, but it was more like an alernate feed. I didn't subscribe to CI back then but they still game through.

Maybe CBC could make nice the cableco's and make a CBC alternate channels (sort of like what tsn did before tsn2). Where they just flip it on when there's too much content for the one broadcast. It sure beats the cableco having to air a bunch of timeshifted cbc stations that people only watch on saturday evenings.

Also the reason they can't be broadcast on centre ice/gamecentre live is that gamecentre live is intended for out of market games. So any game that is broadcast in your area can't be carrier (or in this threads cause, if any tv channel acquired the rights, they can't air it either).

I'm not sure why. They could just air the commercials on gamecentre live. No harm no foul? Allthough I suppose people could stop cancelling their cable subs if that was the case.

It's your Cable-co's fault for not to negociate with CBC for the alternate feeds just for Hockey, CBC won't give your cable-co anything until they asked for it(with a good deal to CBC of course) That's why you can see some channels are missing while comparing to other provider.

for your question asking why GC Live are blacking out CBC's game out-of-market. The answer is simple, CI/GC doesn't care if you are in Toronto or Edmonton, they just care if you are in the US, Canada or any other country. They doesn't care if CBC give you the HD feed or even no feeds on CBC's site, it's GC's job to do the "geo-block" stuff for Canadian since CBC holds the rights in all parts of Canada and it's CBC's job to provide their best thing they can give to you in Canada (and your Cable-co, too).
There's no different between the TV market in Sports or Enternment but it made a bigger issue in Sports since all sport events are just for that moment were the Enternment stuff can stay for a longer period.

You had no right to change the policy of it, but you had the right to change your service provider (pay-TV company in this case) when you don't feel good from it.

Maybe you could do it online if they offered true HD quality feeds for people who want to watch hockey but don't subscribe to cable, but that's about it.

HD feeds via Internet are bandwidth hogs, and that includes the new HTML5 video tags with H264 encoding option(approx 1-2GB a hour). Double that if its streamed in flash. That's why you find they dumb down the quality.

It's your Cable-co's fault for not to negociate with CBC for the alternate feeds just for Hockey, CBC won't give your cable-co anything until they asked for it(with a good deal to CBC of course)

Isn't that just dandy.

If this is indeed the case ... then isn't this what we see in many many similar situations (not just broadcasting ... but also life in general).

Two entities, sitting there looking at each other, "playing possum", twittling their thumbs, seeing who will blink first, and "ASK" the other first - so as to gain some sort of negotiating advantage.

"Well, you're the one who asked first, it seems that you NEED it or WANT it. Well ... in that case - here's the deal we're willing to offer you."

You know, with this method of operation, usually little progresses.
Little usually changes, gets accomplished, moves forward, or improves.

Don't they call that politics?