beIN SPORT 1 CANADA - speculation thread (Canada specific info ONLY)

FFS, Canadian Content rules cannot possibly be satisfied by hiring two Canadians, no matter how senior, and sticking them in a studio in Miami. Other than the rules that are actually written down, CanCon has become a child of the unions (we have those here, eh!) and the notion that you can run a rogue "Canadian" station from Miami without the cities of Toronto and Vancouver (where shooting stuff with cameras is a major industry) and the entire province of Quebec making a little aside and having a quiet word with the CRTC is ludicrous.

Read this with special attention to I (a), I (c) and IV. Depending on how Telelatino shows the games, you can have lower CanCon requirements in terms of % of air time, but not in terms of relaxing what constitutes Canadian

Alternatively, find me one TV show of any kind in the last 20 years that has satisfied CanCon while being produced and taped abroad. Thank you.

 

Well if you look at La Complex is filmed in the States but is mostly all Canadian i might be wrong but i think it does fall under cancon as for Canada yes Vancouver and Toronto are used a fair amount but so is Ottawa and some other citys.

 

You are leaving out the 75% costs criteria. A show produced entirely outside of Canada cannot fulfill CanCon rules unless it's something like two Canadians doing improv puppet theatre with one camera against a black background.

That's BS. Skilled Canadian workers find their ways into top US firms in all walks of life regardless of CanCon. Given the production costs and personnel of CNN, I don't think there is a single show that fulfills CanCon, let alone the station as a whole, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong with a source. CNN has a licence to air its US signal in Canada, same as other major US networks (NBC, hell, even PBS is in my cable roster).

Barring that magic source of yours, CNN does not, never has, and never will satisfy CRTC CanCon rules.

This is the only thing you have written that makes sense.

Again, no one has ever fulfilled CanCon without having production at least partly in Canada. You cannot fulfill CanCon from the US, or, believe me, commercial stations here that hate CanCon (all of 'em) would be trying like mad. The notion of Canadians moving en masse to the US to produce a soccer show and getting jobs because they are Canadian is ludicrous.

 

Yes, and I am sure the CRTC has mighty good ones that are exceptional at catching just what you are implying. Judging by the amount of CanCon shows produced in the US, I'd say they have a 100% success rate.

Find me ONE example of a CanCon show that is not at least partly produced in Canada. One. If you think BeIn Sport can do this through creative accounting, why are mammoth operations with intimate knowledge of CDN market rules (note that BeIn is neither big nor knowledgeable at this point), such as Rogers, Bell or Quebecor, not doing it right this minute? You still think CNN fulfills CanCon?

 

Do you think BeIN has tried to purchase a piece of The Score and made that into their channel instead of Euroworld Sport? I know the The Score has regulations about being a sports highlights channel but they show live events all the time.

 

First, Setanta had to start CanCon because they switched licence type from PPV to Category 2, now Category B. The "requirement" didn't "go up". Rogers effectively asked for a new channel, with different conditions, and then gave it the same name.

Second, I am not asking whether you can get away without CanCon. Anyone that has ever turned on a TV in Canada knows you can do this with the appropriate licence; and if you don't have CanCon demands you don't need to make your longwinded posts about hot Canadian anchors and producers doubling up as scriptwriters and whatnot. Your Setanta example has nothing to do with the important questions here; your CNN example would be at least relevant if it were true that CNN has to comply and complies with CanCon, which is false on both points.

The question is whether, when you already have a CanCon-demanding licence (i.e. Telelatino, GolTV), you can meet CanCon producing and filming outside of Canada. This is the question you have to answer.

 

There are some cases where some channels don't have to have any cancon so it could be possible that Be in sport could apply for a brand new channel and maybe hook up say with Shaw.

 

Also, note that as of today EuroWorldSport is a terrible fit because it is carried by only one provider (Rogers) in four provinces (generously counting South Ontario as 100% of Ontario, which is not quite true). No one in Quebec, British Columbia or Alberta (2nd, 3rd and 4th in population) can see this channel. Half of the population of Canada cannot get this channel. If you think soccer viewership is heavily biased towards cities because of immigration and age demographics (your vaunted 18-34), citizens of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th largest cities in Canada cannot watch this channel.

 

Rogers is in most of Ontario includes of course Toronto but Ottawa as well plus they are on the East Coast as for Eurosport the thing is if they rebrand it you will see more and more interested in it such as Bell/Shaw.

 

Rogers/EuroWorld Sport is not available down here in Southern Ontario which is a huge soccer market in Canada because of all the immigrants. TLN has to get EuroWorld Sport on Bell and Cogeco in the coming months.

 

Again, this is a timing problem. It took Bell one full year from launch to add GolTV, despite the fact that Rogers had GolTV and Videotron had added six months later. And this was after incredibly aggressive campaigns (including free 3-month previews in the middle of the European season, I remember because I had a couple of those and they were pretty sweet). Satellite providers took way longer, my in-laws in not-South Ontario only managed to get it a few years ago.

If La Liga and Serie A start with no carriers, hardcore viewers will go to streaming (which has improved a lot since GolTv's 2005 launch) and casual viewers (the vast majority) will be lost to the EPL or will lose interest in the sport. Ditto if they start with EuroWorld only, except they may get to keep some Rogers subscribers although not all if they price it over GolTV (i.e. at Setanta or Sportsnet World level). Either way, it will be a disaster; the sheikh is undoubtedly better off buying/rebranding GolTV Canada by drastically overpaying to overcome GolTV US's reticience than losing the entire GolTV viewership, subscriber base and carrier base.

And no "October 5 deadline so they can show an October 6 clásico". If in October 5 I found out I need to switch providers to watch a game the following day, even if I didn't take a financial hit (which I would), and even if I could get the channel (which I can't with EWS), I WOULDN'T F***ING DO IT BECAUSE I CAN'T SWITCH IN TIME!

 

Livesoccertv.com has posted both channels of BeIN Sport USA 1 & 2 under the Canadian section of channels.

Any thoughts?

 

Email response from LiveSoccerTV about the additions of BeIN Sport channels on the Canadian section.

Hi Andy, channels on LiveSoccerTV are assigned based on their acquired geo-broadcast rights. We will likely be revising these 2 channels as we await some feedback from operations at beIN. Stay tuned.

Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

 

Implicit in my rant is the not-too-far-out idea that BeIn will not win EPL rights if come October they have bought rights to events that no one is watching.

Also, the idea that a package that is currently worth $6 million is going to be purchased by $50 million is risible. There is simply no way to make back that kind of money in Canadian markets. A bid for that amount will ring all the Setanta bells, since the EPL has already been screwed by lack of payment before. Owning TV rights is not like owning a club. You can make your club a vanity project and subsidize it indefinitely as a money-losing proposition. You can't do that with TV rights unless you are indescribably stupid and have nothing better to do with your money.

The idea that you can put Rogers out of the sports broadcasting business by overbidding for and winning the EPL is equally risible.

 

Just got off the phone with TLN.

I've been told something could be announced in the next day or so or who knows also the programming schedule will return to normal in September. They are in a transitional period what i've been told & they are not sure on the rights issue etc