The End Of An Era

In this episode of "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" I stop the presses for an announcement by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) that "Hockey Night In Canada" will no longer be bringing Saturday night hockey to television sets in Canada for the first time in almost 100 years (if you count the early years on radio). Today's episode will take a look at those years of HNIC from four perspectives, that of the CBC's official on air announcement, a sports talk show in the U.S., a reflection of one John Shannon who for many years was involved in the production of HNIC and lastly the accounting by a sport journalist on the economics of the CBC's decision. You may wish to use the chapter markers above these show notes to go to specific locations in the episode based upon the descriptions of the four points of view. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:14

I suspect for a lot of listeners to this episode of the Pay in the Last podcast that theme music has been around in your life because it has been in mine for a very long period of time. For me, every time someone calls me on my cell phone, that's my ringtone. And of course, I'm referring to the theme music for Hockey Night in Canada, a property that has been on the uh public broadcaster in Canada, known as by the acronym CBC, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. As I said, it's the public broadcaster, it's not a private uh medium. And the announcement this week that Hockey Night in Canada as a property for NHL hockey is not going to be continued. You will learn that the property known as Hockey Night in Canada will continue, but it will do so in a very different form. So, as far as today's episode is concerned, you're going to hear about the announcement from four different perspectives. One of the sound bites that you will hear will be directly from the news item that was provided by the CBC. And then a media outlet in the United States looking at it through that lens across the border. And that was a bit of a surprise when I did my research. You will hear from John Shannon, who was involved in the actual production of Hockey Night in Canada, and then an accounting of the economics of the decision by a sports reporter from a Toronto newspaper, the Toronto Star. The show notes might be important for you, the consumer of this episode. You may be only interested in uh one of the sections. Uh they will be a little bit repetitive because it is, of course, the same news story, but from four different points of view. So you may want to check out the show notes, uh, and I will uh provide you with uh a quick way to go to each of the different sections. Of course, that's entirely up to you. Well, as I said, it certainly reverberated across uh Canada and North America when that announcement came, and I felt it was worthy of a special episode. Last week I ended with uh the look towards this week and pebble water 23.0. Well, there will be a pebble water 23.0, but it will, of course, be moved back till next week. So uh strap on those hockey helmets and let's find out why the decision was made and what it's going to be like going forward for hockey night in Canada. And of course, this is Bill Shearhart, Chartered Professional Coach with Coaches of Canada, once again coming to you from my home in Grand Bend, Ontario, on the ancestral land of the Kennel and Stony Point First Nation. Thank you very much for joining me this week. Here is the actual CBC news announcement about Hockey Night in Canada.

CBC On Air Announcement

SPEAKER_05 3:41

Some Canadians will have to pay more if they want to watch hockey at all. The CBC will no longer carry NHL broadcasts after this season that just wrapped up as Rogers Sportsnet takes over all games. The CBC's Mark Harkaswall joins me in studio with the details on our this really is the end of an era that spans almost a hundred years.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Yeah, end of an era, certainly. And I want to get into that, but I also want to talk about something you mentioned there about the fact that this impacts the way Canadians will watch the game, how much it costs them to pay. Andrew said some Canadians will have to pay more. I think the key line is here some Canadians will have to pay, period. Uh, because without uh hockey broadcast on CBC, there's no longer any over-the-air free hockey broadcast in Canada. And in terms of basic cable, there is still some limited options, but increasingly it's going toward you having to have some sort of a sports package or an app package or something like that. You can still uh get hockey games on basic cable with City TV, but then you need a sports package to get SportsNet or TSN, uh various apps to get uh a lot of out-of-town games if your favorite team is not your hometown team. So it is definitely going to change the way uh Canadians watch hockey uh and how much it's going to cost. Essentially, CBC was rebroadcasting hockey night in Canada on Saturday nights. Rogers has had the rights to that since 2013. They were producing it all, uh they were getting the ad revenue from it. The CBC was essentially just rebroadcasting it. But with Rogers renewing the deal for its NHL rights, CBC was left out of having that clause that it had the last time around that allowed it to show Hockey Night in Canada. So that's why there's no more CBC uh TV uh hockey broadcasts. Now, in terms of, yes, as Andrew mentioned, the end of an era, SportsNet and CBC in a joint statement touched on that late this morning when they wrote, quote, after a successful 12-year partnership, Sportsnet and CBC today announced the public broadcaster will no longer carry NHL broadcasts after the current season as it moves forward with a new direction for its sports programming following the unprecedented success of the Milano Cortina Olympic Games. Watching hockey on Saturday night is a time-honored tradition for Canadians, and SportsNet is privileged to continue to deliver that tradition. Time honored indeed, as you mentioned, Andrew, close to a century now. CBC has been broadcasting hockey night in Canada, first in radio as of 1936, then as of October 1952, doing it with television. Foster Hewitt commentating along the way, uh, that legendary voice. Now that's not going to be the case. CBC says it is going to increase its sports programming in other ways to fill that gap. Most notably, they say they will be focusing on the next Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, women's professional leagues, 20 major world championships that are also on Saturday nights when Hockey Night in Canada would have normally aired, going to have a show showcasing Canadian athletes. So a major change in the way Canadians will view the game, just a major change in the Canadian scope of heritage, if you will.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

Yeah, absolutely. Uh a big deal. Thank you. CBC Spark Carcass Hole. So we're staying on the story and bringing in Jeff Merrick, just outside of Toronto. He's a hockey analyst and host of uh the Sheet Podcast. And Jeff, uh nice to see you. Thanks for taking the time.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Oh, Andrew, it's so great to see you. I feel we should have like like black drapes behind here. So it's uh a sad day for Canadian sports fans. It is great to see you, but yes, this is uh very much uh the end of an era here, stating dating back some 74 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Yeah, I I mean almost a hundred, if you include the radio broadcasts. Uh so what so what are we losing here? You're I I I feel like you're you're sad about this.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

Um it's tough for me to separate sort of professional Jeff from from personal Jeff because I I grew up with this property on CBC. You know, I think uh for a lot of Canadians, a lot of our childhoods were sort of mixed in with, you know, the family gathering together on a Saturday night to watch to watch hockey games. Um whether it was you know all the way back in the uh original Six era or right up until last week. Um, you know, CBC was always a staple with with hockey in Canada. So it it's a loss. And I I want to take it even further. I Andrew, I don't even think it's just a sports loss, I think it's a culture loss too, um, as well. This has been a mainstay, um, one of those things that that hasn't changed. I mean, it's certainly evolved. It's a much different presentation. Um, it is, you know, and has been for the last 12 years handled and produced by Roger Sports. But uh I think this is a a cultural loss for this country. I mean, uh I I I always try to catch myself and say, don't be the one that's hanging on to history and marrying yourself to history and not wanting it to budge. But I I I can't help but thinking that uh this is this is a pretty significant loss for Canadians here.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

And then, you know, I mean from an equity point of view, uh, you know, there are a lot of people that watch hockey uh that uh are trying to make ends meet, and now they're gonna have to for a lot of Canadians, uh depending, yeah. For a lot of Canadians, they're gonna have to pay for it. I mean, what what do you make of that aspect of the story?

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Sports is big business. You know, live event television drives the marketplace, and that's where a lot of the revenues are. And Rogers uh Sportsnet is in the the business of selling subscriptions and getting shareholder value, et cetera, all the things that we're used to with um uh with companies like Rogers Sportsnet. So it really should come as no surprise that they want to bring uh the entire thing under the tent. Um I I had always I always thought that the NHL wanted as wide distribution as possible, and that's why I really thought that the the Rogers SportsNet CBC marriage was a good one because it seemed to sort of satisfy what both sides needed. Um CBC wasn't selling any commercial inventory on Occupy in Canada in this 12-year package, the most recent 12-year package. There was promotional inventory that CBC enjoyed, but there wasn't any commercial inventory that they were participating in. I always thought that this was a really good hand-to-glove relationship between the two sides here that would allow all Canadians um to enjoy a Saturday night with their family, as historically Canadians always had, always have. But those days are in the rear view mirror now, Andrew.

SPEAKER_05 9:56

You know, as as uh Mark was mentioning, uh is saying that they're gonna focus on other sporting events, such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, women's uh professional league. So does this, as one door closes, does another door open for different kinds of opportunities, different coverage?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

That's a great way to look at it, and specifically with the PWHL. I mean, this is listen, the the best investment opportunity right now in sports is on the women's side of things. And if you look at the future growth potential for hockey, the biggest growth potential is on the women's side, not the men's side. Sure, the men's side right now is where we're seeing millions and millions of dollars. But I've always maintained if you want to invest in a growth opportunity in hockey, it's at the women's end of things right now. The PWHL is a very much a league on the rise. Is it profitable yet? No, but that is certainly on the horizon when they start to sell some of these franchises. So, you know, much like CBC helped the NHL go from the root to the fruit, I think there's the opportunity now for CBC to do the same with the PWHL.

SPEAKER_05 11:01

Do you think this move was inevitable?

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Probably. As we look at the way sports is trending right now and sports broadcast and all of the sub-licensing that uh Roger Sportsnet is going to be doing with these with this package, and that I don't think it's put to bed yet, but will be announced at some point as well. Like, look, sports is big business. And, you know, uh again, like I mentioned, sports that's in the in the in the business of selling subscriptions. So it shouldn't come as any surprise. Um, as much as it is a bummer uh for Canadians, it really should come as no surprise that this is the inevitability that this is March towards.

SPEAKER_05 11:35

Okay, so Jeff, since you opened the door to, you know, talking about it, I mean, you know, personal, how it kind of like what you know, take me down on memory lane, you know, what what does it mean to you to kind of to kind of to lose this? And and and to be fair, we should say, you know, the CBC did have that promotional aspect to it, but it really hasn't been, it's just been it has been a rebroadcast for many years.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

But tell me more about so so much, Andrew, so much of my youth has been uh mixed in with, you know, in the the fall, winter, and spring, watching hockey games on CBC Saturday night, me and my sister in front of the television, West End Toronto, my mom and dad on the couch. Um, and it was something that we got together to do as a family. And as even as we got older and family responsibilities and pursuits got scattered, there was always that one common ground that we had. We were always together on Saturday nights. And I don't think I'm unique across the country of many people as well. Like I think a lot of Canadians share those same memories. I can't tell you how many games or Stanley Cup finals or international competitions we all watched as a family on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. This is uh for me personally, it's it's I'm gonna consider a major loss.

SPEAKER_05 12:53

Yeah. And in the all right, uh Jeff, appreciate appreciate your your time very much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 13:03

For you hockey night in Canada fans living south of the border. I came across this sound bite, which uh was somewhat surprising that uh American uh hockey fans would be uh affected by the announcement. So let's listen to this perspective from the United States.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Eric, I appreciate the call and the topic and honestly the concern because I know you, even as a Northern Californian, feel this way

An American Perspective

SPEAKER_01 13:35

about hockey night in Canada. We don't even really get the broadcasts fully here in the United States. So they've been simulcasted on NHL Network over the years. But I think we can all realize the tradition north of the border, it's basically going away. And to be clear, this new deal with SportsNet and NHL Exclusivity, it was signed a while back, but we're just realizing now that CBC is not a part of it, and CBC owns the rights, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation owns the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada brand because they've had it since forever. And so with these two entities kind of separating and parting ways and CBC no longer being part of the NHL broadcasts, this is kind of the end of Hockey Night in Canada, I think right now, as we know it. More on some potential plans for the future and how to use that brand, but the fact that moving forward we won't see the towels at intermission that say Hockey Night in Canada with the CBC logo and the cursive font and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, that's going to end, apparently, because CBC owns the rights and they're not attached to this anymore. So the deal with SportsNet ends, the CBC deal, and CBC owns the rights to the brand. Sportsnet's going to continue for another what dozen years doing this. It's pretty crazy to think about the history and tradition of these Saturday night NHL games. And to be clear, the NHL is still going to schedule big-time Canadian-on-Canadian team matchups on Saturday nights. You can guarantee that. All of that's going to change. And this is a tradition that began on radio in 1931 and then moved over to television in 1952. We're talking about, yeah, almost a hundred years ago since the original inception of hockey night in Canada. A tradition, a time where on Saturday nights you knew that you'd have one or two games back to back. And Canadians basically, it's like they're Monday night football. This is the time to turn on the television. It's the dead of winter typically, and you've got the best in hockey on your screen and on CBC, which I should also clarify for a lot of Americans who either aren't aware or didn't know this level of information. CBC is a public-funded government entity, right? So it's not like a private company. They don't even necessarily have the flexibility, maybe, to bid more or to bargain more or to be part of NHL coverage. Uh, it's almost like PBS here in the United States. It's a little bit different than that in the way that it's funded, but it's a government-funded entity. And so it couldn't necessarily compete. That's the way it used to be back in the day. And now the big time sports networks have fully taken over. And the last deal is Sportsnet, I should be clear, we could kind of see this coming because Sportsnet did a deal where they sub-licensed their games on CBC, meaning that Sportsnet took over the entire production of this. They just slap the Hockey Night in Canada name and the music and the logo over it and put it on CBC. But now, like you can see, the next evolution is that Sportsnet is taking it over entirely and bringing it to exclusively their network. But again, I don't know if they can call it Hockey Night in Canada. CBC says they'll announce plans to use the hockey night brand. If you're CBC and you know that you're done with this, right? Like, there's no way for you to ever be part of televising Saturday night hockey night in Canada games. And if you really need the money, why not sell off the intellectual property of the Hockey Night in Canada brand? Sell it to SportsNet for a price that they can pay. Obviously, they're doing well and they bid for the exclusivity of the NHL contract. Why not sell off the brand to send it in a good place so that it can continue for the fans? It's almost like um it's almost like a public entity. I know that CBC owns the rights to it, but it's almost like something that the public should own and should not be denied from the Canadian hockey viewers. So maybe CBC could sell the brand. I feel like if they were to use it in some other, I don't know, non-appropriate way, I mean like non-high level, or if they tried to make it into a youth hockey thing, or it just it would not have the same feel. This is not what people are expecting. It's like in America if they said, okay, Monday Night Football, which by the way, did transition from over-the-air ABC to cable ESPN years ago. But now imagine if they said, okay, we got to take the name off Monday Night Football. So we're gonna do is televise high school football games and put them on Monday nights and call it Monday Night Football. That's not going to be the same. So please, CBC, whatever you do, unless you're going to use this brand for NHL games on Saturday nights that people can watch on TV, don't mess up the brand. Don't drive it into some weird place that nobody else is gonna want to use it. Again, I'm suggesting, I think, uh selling off the rights. CBC gets the money, uh, sportsnet gets the brand, the viewers get the product, the name, the feel of of these Saturday night broadcasts. The other part about this is that and and I think this is still a significant deal. Is it a big deal in 2026? I'm not sure. But it kind of is the end of free hockey on over-the-air television in Canada, right? Because SportsNet's taking it over. These CBC games on Saturdays were the last remaining free thing to watch, and now you're not getting free hockey on television anymore. But I don't know if that's if that's still as big a deal as maybe it would have been in the 90s, when not everybody had a phone or a device in front of them or a way to watch or stream in front of them, or probably has a cable package or some type of subscription now, streaming subscription, like the access is not terrible here. So it's not like you're cutting off 50% of the eyeballs who could watch this. I don't know that that's as big a deal, but it is significant that basically the last freeway to watch has now gone away, too. So I don't want to, I don't want to overstate that, but I also don't want to diminish that. It's definitely part of this equation. And I think, Eric, to the point of your entire call here, it's crazy how some of these decisions are made at the highest of levels, in probably a boardroom or a conference room, or looking at a spreadsheet, or talking it over in focus groups, but the final product is almost never considered. Like we're only considering what we're talking about here and the people in this room, and and let's let's huddle together in our own little ecosystem and make a decision about something that I don't know if these people actually watch, enjoy, the people making the decision. Are they fully involved in the production? Do they see the end result of this product? Do they see where it's going? Do they see how much it matters to the hockey fans who care about hockey night in Canada? It's it's crazy to think that sometimes decisions are made with such little foresight, but sometimes that's the way it goes. In broadcasting, in media, in the corporate world, decisions are made in a high-level boardroom that have nothing to do with the boots on the ground of uh what the broadcast looks like, or how many people are watching it, or the people that are actually consuming this broadcast. So I I hate that about I'll say my business that it's a common thing. The traditions are just simply wiped off the map, the map. And for what? Because we couldn't agree on, we couldn't figure this out. It's almost like and this is all coming to light, like the public is is finding this out, and they've waited until the Stanley Cup final is over to announce this and to give it some time. But did anybody think, like, who knew this was happening? Did they think that people wouldn't react this way? Was there any forethought into this? Or is it just like, hey, this is happening, we're moving on now? It's it's crazy to me that there's not like, okay, so it's ending, but here's what we're doing with it. Why are we waiting to announce that? You've known it for a while. I wish they already had a reasonable plan in place. And maybe they'll get there, but they're not there right now. Let me know what you think.

John Shannon

SPEAKER_06 21:44

The voice you are about to hear is that of John Shannon, who for a number of years was involved in the production of Hockey Night in Canada and was a companion uh podcaster with Bob McCowan on Clint Time Sports. So let's hear from John. Let's reflect on those words with the first time.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

When you consider what the brand was for 74 years and what it stood for, and uh what some of us believed in. Um it it's uh it's the end of an era in so many ways, and uh and a little bit of the end of uh uh uh song Canadian era in so many ways. You know, when you when you think about uh what Saturday nights meant uh whether it be the five o'clock start that we used to have on Saturdays, uh and then when the doubleheader occurred in 1995, and when Vancouver and the West uh got their own primetime game. It's just uh it's it's it's part of the uh the culture that uh uh that this country used to have that uh will not occur anymore. There are gonna there are going to be from a practical perspective, there are going to be some comedians uh that will not be able to see hockey on a regular basis now, whether they choose to subscribe to a Rogers product or whether in part of the country uh where it's not available, that's going to be uh that's going to be difficult for some of those people to uh to swallow. Uh, but we won't know that until late September next uh uh when the season starts again.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

John, tell us about your association with hawking in Canada, how far uh back it goes, and what was it like for a kid from Oliver uh BC to be working on a major show uh like that?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

So my first year was 1977. Uh I got paid $10 a game to be a runner at Maple Leaf Gardens while I was going to school as a broadcast student. Um it was the greatest job that I ever had. Uh I got to rub elbows with uh TV stars and hockey players and uh walked through the bowels of you know the best hockey arenas in the world on a regular basis, got to go to the Stanley Cup final for so many years. I think I did 33 or 34 of them. Um there was a real culture in those days of what hockey night in Canada was. And it was you know, when when you wore the baby blue blazer, Donnie, um, you know, you you were uh you were six inches taller than uh other people, and and you really believed in what you were trying to do and how important hockey was. Not you know, it w and it wasn't Toronto and Vancouver and Montreal where it was important. It was in uh Prince George and in Yorkton, uh and in Timmons, and uh you know, and and and in Pura, Nova Scotia. That that's where Hockey Night in Canada for me, being a small town boy, um uh that's where it really I I think hit home was that we meant, and I do say we, we at Hockey Night in Canada, we meant so much to so many Canadians, and that's what made me the proudest.

SPEAKER_04 25:13

Why do we remember those days so fondly, the the the paydays of hockey night in Canada so fondly, uh when the coverage of the National Hockey Day is so much more expensive now?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Well, I think you guys kind of uh hit hit the nail on the head earlier, is that you you know, but we didn't used to get hockey seven nights a week. We used to get it uh every Saturday, uh, and then there would be 25 games on Wednesday night. Uh and and that was it. That was it. You didn't see very much else, and that's why the playoffs were so important because you know, on Saturdays during the regular season, you saw games from Toronto, you saw games from Montreal, and as I told you last week, four times a year you saw games from the Coliseum. Um and but in the playoffs, you saw games from every arena. So there was a real connection to uh that group of announcers, a real connection to the game. Um, because it wasn't every night of the week. You know, to put this in context, we revel in the you know, a lot of us in the business say, wow, Monday night football has been on since 1972. Well, Hockey Known Canada was on 20 years earlier than now. Hockey Northern Canada was uh Hockey Night and Canada was part of our culture in our country. Uh for it helped introduce so many new Canadians to uh Canadian culture and to the game of hockey. You know, when you walk down the street and you go to Connect Game now and you see uh the broad strokes of of culture that we see going to the games, a lot of that started with parents and grandparents who moved to this country and watched Hockey I think Canada because that's what Canadians did. And so all of us really owe a debt of gratitude, including me, uh, to what uh the CBC did to what Hockey United Canada did for so many Canadians.

The Economics Of The Decision

SPEAKER_06 27:25

So why was the decision made? Well, as you might guess, there were five very good reasons. M O N Y. So with an accounting of the economic of the decision to close down Hockey Night in Canada in connection with Side of the Night Hockey Games, listen to the words of this Toronto Star reporter. The real reason why the NHL version of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada has ended by Jonas Eagle special to the star. Hockey Night in Canada on CBC is ending, as Canadians have known it. And for a certain kind of hockey fan, that sentence still lands a gut punch. It shouldn't be surprising. That doesn't mean it won't feel strange. CBC Sports and Rogers SportsNet announced earlier this week CBC will no longer carry NHL broadcasts, ending the sub-licensing arrangement that kept games on the public broadcaster after Rogers acquired the league's Canadian rights in 2013. SportsNet will air all Saturday games moving forward as part of its new 12-year, $11 billion NHL deal, which begins next season. Saturday Night NHL hockey is not disappearing, it is leaving CBC. CBC also says the quote, Hockey Night in Canada, unquote, brand itself is not going away. Quote, for the record, CBC owns the Hockey Night in Canada brand, and we have every intention of using it going forward, unquote. Chuck Thompson, chief of staff to the Executive Vice President and Head of Public Affairs at CBC, said in a statement, quote, we will have more to share about how in the coming weeks, close quote, which leads to the obvious question: what is Hockey Night in Canada without NHL games? For decades, Hockey Night in Canada on CBC was not just sports broadcast, it was infrastructure, it was habit, it was winter furniture. The game was on, the country knew where to find it, and nobody needed to ask which app, subscription, platform, bundle, or device. CBC began airing hockey night in Canada on television in 1952 and held exclusive Saturday night rights through the 2013-14 season. The SportsNet Partnership preserved that symbol for twelve more years, even as the business had shifted to Rogers. For nine of the 12 years, the parties exchanged value in kind as CBC aired Rogers games. Rogers received CBC staff, mostly production, and studio space, while CBC received three minutes of promotional time per game. Rogers kept the advertising revenue. When Rogers brought production in-house for the final three years, CBC's in-kind value inside the arrangement diminished considerably. In other words, CBC got hockey, Rogers got the business. That worked when it served both sides. It is harder to justify now with Rogers moving into a deal that more than doubles the annual value of its previous NHL rights agreement, and sports viewing moving further into paid, digital, and direct-to-consumer environments. SportsNet says watching hockey on Saturday night is, quote, a time-honored tradition for Canadians, close quote. And that is, quote, privilege to continue delivering that tradition, close quote. The key word in all of that is continue. SportsNet is not walking away from Saturday night hockey. It is consolidating it. CBC is moving to a new sports strategy built around Canadian athletes, Olympic-oriented competition, and CBC Gem. CBC can still own the Olympic lane, women's sports, amateur sports, Canadian stories, and national events that fit its public mandate. It is harder to build a public broadcaster sports plan around a property it does not own, cannot fully control, and cannot monetize like a private rights holder. There was also a tension that was always going to get harder to sustain. If premium NHL games are built around paid platforms, authenticated access and streaming growth, how long could the same product continue to sit for free on CBC and CBC Gem? For a public broadcaster, free access would likely have been central to the conversation. For Rogers, giving away a product others pay for was harder to justify. And the audience has already shifted. According to Sportsnet, CBC's average minute audience for 7 p.m. Saturday Night HL games was roughly 1.3 million in 2014-15. This past season, it was under 400,000. Over the same period, SportsNet's early game audience moved in the other direction, growing from under 500,000 to roughly 1.3 million. That does not make the end of NHL games on CBC any less jarring. It does explain why the decision makes business sense. CBC framed the move around a new sports strategy, and the economics were clearly pointing in the same direction. For the fan who has watched Hockey Night in Canada on CBC for 50 years, none of that will feel very satisfying. Hockey Night in Canada is among the leading brands in this country. Saturday Night Hockey on CBC is part of the fabric. How generations were raised. Change can be necessary and still be hard. Quote, tradition is hard, change is hard, close quote, said Dan Cimaroni, whose agency represents sports broadcasters. Quote, but nostalgia doesn't buy the platform. I understand the nostalgia part, but I don't see the product diminished, close quote. That is the balance. The move may pull at the heartstrings from a nostalgia perspective, but it is also the way of the digital content consuming world. The modern sports fan does not follow just teams anymore. They follow distribution maps. Hockey fans in Canada are now living the same reality as American fans who have watched the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL scatter pieces of schedules across networks, streamers, and exclusive windows. Fans often call it exhausting. But this is also about fishing where the fish are. Quote, there's a world we now live in that uses all parts of the ecosystem, close quotes. And Rogers may lose some of the cultural warmth that came with CBC. It may also gain a cleaner commercial structure and more flexibility to package NHL content across SportsNet, streaming, and future partners. CBC loses the weekly NHL tent pole. Instead, it is betting on what it can actually own. A new Saturday night primetime show on CBC and CBC Gem focused on Canadian athletes competing at home and at major events around the world. That is a harder sell than Maple East on Saturday night. It may also be more aligned with what CBC is supposed to be. The future is not about preserving the old living room. It's about finding the next audience, the next platform, the next habit, and the next check. HockeyNight Canada on CBC survived longer than the economics suggested it might. But the economic has finally won.

HNIC Theme Music Notes

SPEAKER_06 36:59

Thank you for joining me for this episode, this very special episode of, I was gonna about to say Hockey Night in Canada, but of course it's uh a pain in the glass podcast about the announcement concerning Hockey Night in Canada. So here's a little bit of information regarding that iconic theme music, sometimes known as the hockey theme. And according to Wikipedia, it's a Canadian piece of instrumental theme music composed in 1968 by Dolores Klayman and orchestrated by the Jerry Toth Orchestra. It's widely recognized as Canada's unofficial second national anthem. I certainly agree with that. The theme was associated with CBC Television's Hockey Night in Canada and its uh uh French version, uh La Soirée du Hockey, beginning in 1968. In 2008, the CBC announced that the regulations to renew the license or purchase the theme music had been unsuccessful and that they would run a national contest to find a new theme. The rights were then purchased by rival broadcaster CTV Global Media, now known as Bell Media, in perpetuity. Since 2008, the theme can be heard on hockey broadcasts on the Bell Media-owned TSN and RDS Sports Networks. And in 1968, the CBC commissioned McLaren Advertising to create a new promotional tune for Hockey Night in Canada. McLaren contracted Dolores Klayman, a classically trained composer who had produced a number of successful jingles, promotional songs, and television theme music to write the tune. Klayman had never seen a hockey game in person and wrote the tune imagining Roman gladiators wearing skates. Sounds like the biggest Golden Knights. It just arrived in my head, she said, as she recalled several decades later. Klayman said she wrote it to reflect the narrative arc of a hockey game from the arrival on the rank to the battle of the game to the trip home, plus a cold beer, though how appropriate. Since the song was originally classified as an advertising jingle, Clayman did not originally get residuals, but only at one time created a fee of $800. The piece was originally performed by a 20-member orchestra. Clayman would later explain how the success of the song would help put Toronto on the international radar of advertising industry. Obviously, we pleased people and we got a lot of work out of that agency. I think we really did start the big center that Toronto has turned out to be in a way of music, jingles, and advertising. In the 1970s, CBC began using the tune as the standard introduction for the show, and Clayman was entitled to a music use license payment between $2,000 and $10,000 each year. After she was advised by her agent in 1993 to license the tune, she earned approximately $500 per broadcast. So good for you, Dolores. You are an astute business person. Another bit of trivia before we shut down for this week has nothing to do with hockey night in Canada, but one of the quintessential stars over the years has been Yarmi Jagger. And I heard this, and of course, if you hear it on the internet, it must be true, but I really do feel it was true. Now listen carefully to this piece of trivia. Yarmi Jager, of course, has been retired for a long period of time. He had a long career, and that's important in this piece of trivia. But since 1980, that's 46 years ago, for every Stanley Cup final. By the way, my American friend is Stanley Cup Final. And your NBA final is grammatically incorrect. I digress. So since 1980, a member of one of the teams playing in the Stanley Cup final was a teammate of the Army Yawger. So for 46 great years starting in 1980, a member of one of the teams playing in the Stanley Cup final had been a teammate of the Army Yogger. Now why that resonates with me, I'm not exactly sure. And I'm not uh sure why somebody would even research that, but I think that's an amazing statistic. At the 46th Great Year in the Stand Cup final, a player was a teammate of Yarn Yoga. Well, on that happy note, let's remember that the great North American philosopher Charlie Brown so focused on things that make you sad when there are so many things that can make you happy. So until next week for Double Water 23.0. Have a great week, wherever you are. So until next time.