Technically, airing sporting events in HD is one thing. Being able to pay for it is something else, as Canadian hockey fans were recently reminded. The CBC was not planning to broadcast all its schedule playoff games earlier this month between the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks in HD because of the productions costs involved. The games in Vancouver were safe, but the away-games in St. Louis were cost-prohibitive—until a Canadian food chain stepped in at the last minute and promised to pick up the tab.
The food retailer, Save-On-Foods, came up with the extra funding required for the funding-challenged CBC, following a lot of loud griping on sports talk radio and various Canadian Web sites. But CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said in Toronto the outcry had not prompted the reversal by the network.
“Without the resources to do it, we wouldn’t have been able to do it. We are facing a $171 million revenue shortfall,” Keay told the Vancouver Sun.
It seems CBC in Vancouver has only two HD mobile units and there wasn’t enough time to drive down to St. Louis after the first two games in Vancouver. The money from Save-On-Foods allowed the CBC to rent mobile units in the United States.
Read all of HD Notebookhere.
