You’ve probably heard by now that CTV won the rights to broadcast the 2010 and 2012 Olympics on TV in Canada. Actually, it was CTV and Rogers Communications together that won. Anyway, did you hear how much they paid?
Tod Maffin over at CBC posted that the number he has been hearing is $153 million dollars. Consider that CBC paid $45 million for the 2004 Athens Olympics, a Canadian-record for TV broadcasting rights. Makes me wonder what CBC bid – certainly a lot less than CTV did. Seems like an awfully large sum to me, ya think CTV overpaid perhaps?
MasterMaq's Blog 
Not necessarily, because they think that more people will watch the 2010 Olympics due to the fact that they are taking place in Vancouver so there is "home country" appeal. Its also because the Olympics are still appeal to a large audience so they believe they can recoup the cost through advertising. Also you can’t compare the old bids w/ the new bids necessarily because they included internet and mobile phone rights that was previously not part of the package. Here’s the link http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050207/RMEDIA07/TPBusiness/?query=broadcast+rights+to+Olympics
It might turn to subscriber only though.
I suppose the "home field" advantage makes a difference, I didn’t really take that into account. I don’t think factoring the Internet and mobile phone stuff into the deal should really make that much of a difference – the Canadian populations of both are so small, it shouldn’t warrant a $50 million increase. The other thing is that you can control what Canadians watch, but on the Internet, they are unrestricted!
Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out!
I think that it’s dumb that CBC isn’t doing the Olympics past 2008. I like CBC’s coverage. ANd I heard that CTV/Rogers is going to be broadcasting 24 hours a day. I"m sorry, but when the Olympics are in Vancouver, what exactly are we going to watch? The snow fall? I think not. The only upside I can see is that Brian Williams WON’T be talking.