Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Canucks find a new CHUM
From 24hrs.ca:
Now, I am not a radio listener these days, but I did listen to games on the radio in the past, especially before the advent of televising so many games.In a move that sent shockwaves across the airwaves, CHUM Radio lured the Vancouver Canucks away from CKNW.
The Team 1040 will air radio broadcasts of the NHL team after signing a six-year deal for the rights yesterday. The deal takes effect at the start of next season.
"That's a pretty phenomenal coup," said Barry MacDonald, a Team 1040 morning host and 24 hours' columnist. "We know what defines sports in Vancouver. Canucks are the meal ticket."
CHUM vice-president and general manager Neil Gallagher said luring the Canucks away from 'NW has always been part of the station's strategy
"This is probably the biggest plum for sports in Vancouver - it is hockey after all," he said.
"It's just fabulous."
The move tips the scales in Vancouver's sports radio wars, which pits CHUM's Team 1040 against MOJO 730, owned by the Corus Radio network, which also owns CKNW.
"People who are serious about sports already lean to Team 1040 over Mojo, anyway," said Joe Leary, a long-time radio pundit. "This gives them an automatic increase in audience, certainly in male numbers, no question about it."
Canucks play-by-play host John Shorthouse and colour commentator Tom Larscheid may go to 1040 but that's between CHUM and the broadcasters. Team 1040 also has rights for the B.C. Lions.
CKNW is a talk-radio station, and was pretty much Vancouver's only station in that game for many years. Until MOJO and Team 1040 came along, Sports Talk (Dan Russel's show) was basically CKNW or FM station ROCK 101. CKNW is not a sports station, while Team 1040 is all about sports.
CKNW has generally had good production values and a quality pre-and-post game show.
Team 1040? Think of the bad things you hear on and about sports-talk radio, and Team 1040 has them all. I've listened to Team 1040 a few times, but between David Pratt and the rest of the no-nothings, I'd get more useful information from the crazy guy asking for change at the corner of Thurlow and Robson.
If CHUM can't lure away Shorthouse (leave Larscheid behind for all I care, he's a goof), then I fear the quality of Canucks broadcasts will be severly dimished. Team 1040 is a very Torontoish product (It's a spawn of the TEAM concept across Canada) and not of very good quality.
*bleh*, I'm just glad I don't need radio broadcasts to enjoy hockey. If I need to listen to a PPV game, I'll do it at NHL.com and get the visitor's feed.
What's this PPV mumbo-jumbo you keep mentioning? Are not all of the Canucks games available on regular cable up there?
Roddie
: 4:46 pm 1. No, not every game is available on local cable here
2. More and more, games are going to PPV.
http://www.canucks.com/images/Schedule/05-06sched.xls
That's the sked with all of the broadcast info.
The Canucks claim that the networks don't want the games that normally go to ppv, which is total hogwash. You think Sportsnet would rather have poker?? Canucks are milking this as another $ source.
: 6:56 am << Home
