Keith Pelley, who oversaw the CTV-Rogers consortium's coverage of the Vancouver Olympics, has been named president of Rogers Media.
The announcement was made Tuesday morning. Pelley will replace Tony Viner, who has retired.
Pelley, who rejoined the CTV group after a stint as president of the Toronto Argonauts, will oversee all aspects of Rogers media properties from television (Sportsnet) to radio (including the FAN 590) and magazines.
His departure from the Olympic Consortium means that it will be seeking someone to oversee the 2012 London Olympics.
could Rogers/Sportsnet be posturing for negotiations for the next CFL tv contract?
Pelly has a great relationship with the CFL / Argos, and helped forge TSN's relationship with the CFL.
Pelley is a top notch executive. I think Rogers is looking at doing some major overhauls. They are closing a bunch of their retail operations out here anyway. Laying off people and the Jays and Bills thing is a huge drain on cash flow. Can you imagine if Rogers had purchased the Argos and invested a little bit in the CFL instead of blowing 85 million on the Bills.
The poor management at Rogers is costing jobs and the increased competition coming in the cell industry will do nothing to help.
perhaps all of the CFL games will go the way of the Jays and be moved to 'sportsnet one' where only a select group of people in the GTA can actually watch for a fee.
I think pelley is smart enough to put the CFL games on sportsnet and bump the lesser watched jays games to sportsnet one, or sell a bunch of jays games to tsn, who would need the programming if they lost the CFL rights.
Even if sportsnet doesn't get the next CFL deal, the main thing is that they put in a bid, so tsn would be forced to pay more to keep the CFL!
with his past links to the league, this can only be good news in terms of upping the stakes in the next round of TV deal negotiations. Pelley was a big CFL booster
At least it could potentially increase the value of the CFL next tv deal.
Maybe Pelley will put some sense into Rogers. After their money-losing excersise known as Bills in Toronto is over, I doubt they'll still have the hots for the NFL as much.
It's still very unlikely to see CFL games on sportsnet, but added coverage couldnt hurt/
Provided the Hamilton situation gets resolved and Ottawa comes online, its very possible the next TV deal for the CFL may be too rich for one cable broadcaster but Rogers would be difficult to ignore if it is an appreciated owner around the table. That is assuming that Pelley values the CFL.