And Now The Big TV News Story... In Photographs

One of the things I was told, on applying for media accreditation as videographer at the 2010 Olympics, was that there are strict rules about where you can film. Basically, as an independent journalist, there are very few places that you can film: the Olympics Opening Ceremony? Most definitely not. Live sports events? Sorry, no. Fans partying? That would depend on what area they are in...

The broadcast and internet rights to the Games have been carved up among the handful of major networks. They've paid a lot of money for these exclusive rights and to keep the competition out.

While South of the Border, NBC has rights to most of the "live" Olympic coverage, here in Canada, CTV has the juicy events such as the Opening Ceremony and the men's and women's hockey matches. What's more, unlike with soccer coverage of big tournaments in other countries, rival channels are not allowed to broadcast even highlights of big games.

This leads to the absurd situation where CBC, Canada's national broadcaster, has to lead with a news story about the Canadian women's hockey team winning the gold medal, but without any footage from the game itself.

Instead, the CBC has been reporting on the men and women's hockey teams paths to glory throughout the last few days while showing still images of the game. They usually pad these reports out by cutting to crazy fans yelling "Go Canada!" and things like "Yeeaaaoooohhh!", throwing in some archive footage of the women's team playing hockey at some earlier date, and adding a negative twist to get to the end of the slot.

I watch CBC all the time, partly because the reporting is not quite as cringeworthy as the other stations, but mainly because the image quality of its free high-def coverage is incomparable (if you have a regular aerial and an HD TV you can get CBC HD over the air). The colours, sharpness of the picture, and motion graphics look so good that I often find myself distracted from the main story as I gaze in awe at the lushness of the picture. Ice in HD looks so much more rich, contoured, and coloured.

CBC does have rights to broadcast what are considered secondary Olympic events such as curling and figure-skating. So it's not been a complete Olympic shutout. I caught Canada's curling team win over Scotland Britain and found myself getting into it. The enjoyment factor in curling is similar to watching snooker with its combination of skill and strategem, a kind of slow, smouldering competition that sneeks up and ambushes you.

But really, the majority of people are most interested in one sport. The IOC/VANOC should have at least allowed the CBC to show the highlights of the national game in motion. You'd think they'd have negotiated such a deal for the good of the sport, at least.

In a few months time, the boot will be on the other foot as the CBC won the broadcast rights for the World Cup (aka the soccer World Cup), which takes place in South Africa. Unlike the Olympics, the World Cup is only held every 4 years, and this is the first time it has been held in Africa.

The CBC recently launched a 2010 World Cup web site which promises live streaming video of matches throughout the tournament which kicks off on 11 June.

Not sure what CTV sports will be doing in June though.