I had the opportunity to attend the Labour Day Classic in Hamilton with a football enthusiast who brought up an interesting point.
I asked for his thoughts on why the NFL gets to go on network television on CTV while the CFL and Grey Cup for the next 5 years will be relegated to cable on TSN. He mentioned something that never crossed my mind: American investment.
Yes the CFL outdraws the NFL in the ratings but what actually produces more advertising revenue? The CFL is sponsored by a number of prominent organizations but does 30 repetitions of the Baconator commercial per game pull in the dollars that lets say Reebok, Chevy or Gatorade will throw at an NFL telecast?
It might not be so much a question of whether corporate Canada is stepping up to the plate (I think they are...) can they compete with advertising revenue that might be coming over the border?
So could this be a big reason as to why we get bombarded by NFL-hype while the CFL is constantly thrown on the back-burner despite the obvious public interest in our home-brew game?
I just couldn't reason with why we don't get that in depth coverage team by team, player by player that we see with the NFL despite the obvious data to indicate that Canadians have a clear-cut interest in Canadian football.
The American advertising revenue in Canada had never occurred to me as being the possible reason CTV decided to go gung-ho with the NFL while Canada's national championship will be on cable.
I may be mistaken but CTV purchases the right to show NFL games ( as has TSN ) and thus puts their own commercials on during the game.
At least that’s what I figured. You might get American commercials during the telecasts on US channels, but unlikely on Canadian channels such as TSN, Global, and CTV.
When CTV bought the rights they earned the right to put their own commercials on the American Network telecast in Canada. That’s why you’ll see Canadian commercials on CBS during NFL games. Because TSN is a cable network, they cannot do this, so they risk losing money by people watching the American telecast over their own.
Because there is no American Network CFL telecast, this is not an issue.
The CRTC has rules in place where if a game is simulcasted on a Canadian network, they cant show the commercials that are aired, so we get the Canadian ones instead. It was done to "protect" the Canadian identity, which is total BS. The same goes for any show, in prime time or daytime.
That is my point. When the NFL is on CTV/CBS, you get the Canadian commercials on BOTH. Which is why Globemedia would want the NFL to be on CTV versus on TSN where they don’t get their ads on the American channel.
I think one of the reasons is because its easier to buy the nfl stuff and american shows to support it than to create your own shows on your own products ... they are cheap
I'm not so sure that cable stations don't simulacast on American channels like the over-the-air channels do. There is no technical reason why they couldn't. It is up to each cable company to implement the simulcasts, overriding the American NFL broadcast with the CTV or TSN feed. This is actually required by broadcasting regulations. Perhaps the Sunday guy at the cable company just had a bad day?
The CRTC has relaxed the simulacast rules recently and are thinking of completely removing them.
The push to remove the rules is coming from the cable broadcasting companies. Thier production facilities are not what a networks are (i.e. CBC, CTV, Global, etc). Therefore, it is harder for them do it. Added to that the cost doesn't justify the potential increased revenue, by having the same Burger King Commerical on both CTV and NBC.