CTV body-checks CBC

[dcbogey]

The Hockey Theme, aka our second national anthem, lives on.


http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=240196&lid=headline&lpos=secStory_main

 

[rafterman]

Wonder what the damage was?

and I bet CBC is wishing they bought the rights 40 years ago for pocket change.

 

[stang]

Yeah but CBC still has Strombo.

 

[LancsLad]

Yeah but CBC still has Strombo.

The hasslefree clinic should be able to prescribe something for that.




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[stang]

The Hasselhoff free clinic?

 

[pblues]

CBC needs to get off their high horse. I wonder if they will learn anything from this.

 

[LancsLad]

CBC needs to get off their high horse. I wonder if they will learn anything from this.

Never, when you are propped up with mountains of tax dollars you never need to improve.





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[LancsLad]

The Hasselhoff free clinic?

Correct, the ones with the emergency response KITT.



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[tboy]

CBC needs to get off their high horse. I wonder if they will learn anything from this.

Well, you have to admit, the rights holder was being just a little more than greedy. I believe they were getting $500.00 a game or something like that? Pretty good money for writing 3 bars of music 40 yrs ago.......

Did anyone read the paper in regards to the lawsuit?

Anyhow, in regards to CBC losing the right to use the music I think their hands were tied since there was an outstanding suit against them therefore they couldn't renew the contract. I found it funny how in previous years, whenever CBC was doing something wrong in breach of the contract whenever they renewed the contract the claim against them was dropped...not in this case however.

It isn't so cut and dried that "they snoozed and lost". Blatant greed IMO had a lot to do with it......

 

[rafterman]

Well, you have to admit, the rights holder was being just a little more than greedy. I believe they were getting $500.00 a game or something like that? Pretty good money for writing 3 bars of music 40 yrs ago.

I think the $500 per play was the asking price for the renewal at which CBC was balking.

It isn't so cut and dried that "they snoozed and lost". Blatant greed IMO had a lot to do with it......

But "greed is good" because CTV/TSN has scooped the rights.

I caught just the tail end of a radio interview on CBC As it Happens with one of the CBC TV execs who said the jingle would be worth 2.5MM to 3.00MM based on that asking price. Not sure if that is per year or to buy outright but regardless CBC was in a no win situation as a publicly funded broadcaster, they could never justify that sort of expenditure.

A real payday for the gal who now holds the rights...she doesn't even live in Canada but in the U.K.

Laughing all the way to the Bank.

 

[21pro]

CBC is slowly dissolving HNIC... this was reported in the news in 2005. this is just another step in the process as CBC tries to relieve itself of bigness and the CRTC opens up to privatization and open competition.

 

[tboy]

I think the $500 per play was the asking price for the renewal at which CBC was balking.



But "greed is good" because CTV/TSN has scooped the rights.

I caught just the tail end of a radio interview on CBC As it Happens with one of the CBC TV execs who said the jingle would be worth 2.5MM to 3.00MM based on that asking price. Not sure if that is per year or to buy outright but regardless CBC was in a no win situation as a publicly funded broadcaster, they could never justify that sort of expenditure.

A real payday for the gal who now holds the rights...she doesn't even live in Canada but in the U.K.

Laughing all the way to the Bank.

The $500.00 per play was the current price and they CBC wanted to keep it but the owner of the rights turned it down.

The 2.5 M must have been for the rights in perpetuity. No one would be foolish enough to pay that for a season when last year they were getting $35K (at $500.00 per play).

As for the author raking in the dough. I wouldn't be so sure to say that. I read somewhere that she transferred all rights and priviledges to RMI. If that is actually the case then RMI is making the money, not the author (kind of like Michael Jackson buying the rights to Paul McCartney's music).

 

[dickydoem]

Bring back Murray Westgate(?) and and that old Esso song.... "When the tires are hummimng and the motor purrs...... ". That was the Hockey theme song..... well at least for some of us oldtimers.

 

[dickydoem]

I would also think that all Maple Leaf fans should be rejoicing. After all this song became the official theme of Hockey Night in Canada in 1968. The year after the Leafs last won the Stanley Cup for the last time. Coincidence?

 

[Nickelodeon]

I think CTV got played for suckers here. No f'n way that song is worth $2.5 Mil. You don't build your hockey brand on someone else's equity. This is an issue of my CTV dick is bigger than your CBC dick, and I want to rub your face in it. CBC's bigger problem is on-air talent, or lack of it.

 

[rafterman]

Globe & Mail Report on HNIC theme song saga.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080609.whockeysong0609/BNStory/National/home

TORONTO — Like Jennifer Aniston's marriage to Brad Pitt, the relationship between the CBC and Hockey Night in Canada song composer Dolores Claman had problems known to a handful of insiders – fights over money, hurt feelings, a suitor in the wings.

And Monday, the relationship ended not unlike Ms. Aniston's when the rival CTV network, playing the Angelina Jolie role, swept in to take away Ms. Claman and her song, the iconic dunt-da-DUNT-da-dunt that Canadians have heard for the past 40 years.

“We think it's a tremendous coup,” said CTV executive Rick Brace. “This is the hockey anthem.”

The stunning business deal, which gives CTV perpetual rights to Ms. Claman's song, marks the end of a bitter backroom feud between the composer and the CBC, which has used the tune on its Hockey Night in Canada broadcast since 1968. Although it has simmered for years, the public learned of the battle only last week, when the CBC announced that it would hold a national contest to choose a new song after failing to come to terms with Ms. Claman.

The on-again, off-again effort to rescue the familiar theme song to CBC's Hockey Night in Canada took a dramatic turn Monday

Although neither side will disclose how much Ms. Claman's deal with CTV is worth, Mr. Moore said Monday that the composer had been seeking $2.5-million. (The CBC had reportedly been paying about $500 per broadcast to use the song, and had offered to buy it for an amount “in the high six figures.”) Although thousands signed online petitions urging the CBC to keep the song, declaring it a “national treasure” and “Canada's second anthem,” Mr. Moore said there were limits to how much the public broadcaster was willing to pay: “What Hockey Night in Canada is really about is hockey,” he said. “Everything else is just window dressing.”

Although the impact of the deal on the respective networks will not be known for some time, hockey insiders saw CTV as the early winner: “The CBC played chicken and they lost,” said one.

CTV's deal-making machinery slipped into gear last Friday afternoon, just moments after the CBC announced that it couldn't make a deal with Ms. Claman. By midnight, CTV executives had reached a verbal agreement with her Toronto agent, John Ciccone of Copyright Music and Visuals. Lawyers drafted agreements over the weekend. They were signed Monday.

Mr. Brace of CTV said he isn't concerned about a backlash from fans who might perceive him as an interloper who swept in and stole away Ms. Claman and her song from the CBC as their relationship problems played out in the national media: “Just the opposite,” he said. “There was a divorce on the table.”

Mr. Brace said CTV didn't make any overtures until the CBC announced that it had reached the end of the road with Ms. Claman: “This wasn't poaching. Quite the opposite. This song was dead, and we in fact saved the thing. It would be gone. It would be in an archive somewhere.”

Mr. Brace said CTV plans to use the song in several ways. Its most prominent role will be as the theme song for scheduled hockey broadcasts on TSN, which covers about 70 games a season involving Canadian teams. It will also be featured on CTV's hockey coverage at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Mr. Brace said it's “highly unlikely” that the song would be used in connection with sports other than hockey. “This is the hockey song. It will play the same role here as it did there. It just has a new home.”

Although money was important, insiders said the deciding factor in the battle between Ms. Claman and the CBC was emotion – years of wrangling about the song and its value had angered Ms. Claman. “She was hurt,” said Ms. Claman's agent. “She loves the song. It's very close to her heart. It's like her baby.”

Ms. Claman, now 80 and living in London, England, composed the song in 1968 and licensed it to the CBC for Hockey Night in Canada. Ms. Claman, a commercial jingle writer, retained the copyright. The first real signs of trouble came in 2002, when Ms. Claman protested about some of the ways that CBC was using her song. Two years later, in 2004, she sued the broadcaster, asking for $2.5-million in damages. The lawsuit is still before the courts.

Mr. Brace said he was looking forward to hearing the song on his network when the new hockey season gets under way: “This song is part of the fabric of the country,” he said. “It's absolute Canadiana.”

Looks like CTV moved in pretty fast to sign the rights when CBC negotiations fell apart.

The Globe article suggests there were "issues" between the jingle's writer for years.