The CBC expressed disappointment today that it was unable to reach an agreement on the Hockey Night in Canada theme, but said it was looking forward to proceeding with a nation-wide contest to select a new theme song.
“The owner’s demand of $2.5 to 3 million is well beyond—actually, three or four times as much as—what we consider to be a reasonable valuation,” said Scott Moore, executive director, Television Sports. “As a public broadcaster, it would have been irresponsible to have offered that amount.”
While CTV now holds the rights to the song, CBC said the theme will undoubtedly continue to be associated with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada—the most recognized brand in Canadian sports.
Moore said he’s excited about the contest, announced Friday, to select a new theme song for Hockey Night in Canada. “We’re looking forward to a tremendous contest, which will see Canadians—Hockey Night’s viewers—creating and selecting new music for the country’s most famous sports broadcast. In fact, we’ve already started hearing from people across the country, calling and writing for more information.”
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[...] - The Hockey Theme that CBC couldnt agree to a license fee for, has been bought by CTV for [...]
But isn’t the hockey theme virtually akin to a national anthem?
So why doesn’t the CBC continue paying for its use, instead of setting up an elaborate contest for a tune they will still have to pay royalties for in the future?
Is HNiC music not an essential element of what we consider HERITAGE?
The CBC has not only lost its branding for HNIC but they are still being sued by the composer of the most iconic song in Canada’s history for close to $3M.
While Scott Moore may consider $3M to be “too expensive” for the rights to “the hockey theme” that’s what the CBC could end up paying in addition to their legal fees if the composer Dolores Claman, whose song now belongs to CTV, is successful with her civil action against the CBC.
Talk about poetic nemesis.
[...] that should you continue to follow through with whatever plans you have for the Hocket Song, as detailed in this news story, I will never watch anything you broadcast ever again. This is a total dick move on your part that [...]
The HNIC tune is a vital part of the CBC brand and here we have a CBC executive saying that it’s not worth the $2.5M price. Well the private market thought it was…CBC will no doubt regret this decision. Hearing the HNIC theme on TSN and RDS is going to take some getting used to. CBC execs are fools for letting this happen.
I’m sorry, but your blog post is absolute misrepresentation. The CBC were offered the continued use of the theme for the same price they had been paying for it for the past years. They rejected the offer with a polite email saying they were so sorry they could not come to an agreement. Period. Had they accepted that offer, they would have the theme. After having the offer clearly rejected, the theme was placed elsewhere.
The CBC can’t continue paying for it’s use because the composer wouldn’t agree to that - it takes two sides to negotiate a deal. They won’t pay royalties for a new one in future, as they plan on buying it outright, which, frankly, they should’ve done with the original theme any time in the last 30-40 years….
CTV doesn’t have the budgetary restrictions CBC does, so they could afford to meet the demands of the composer… they’re not accountable to the public and the government for what they spend taxpayers’ money on….
On June 9/08 CBC quotes Scott Moore on this web site: “we presented an offer which we believe was not substantively different from what the rights holders had proposed to us.”
On June 10/08 CBC quotes Scott Moore on this web site: “The owner’s demand of $2.5 to 3 million is well beyond—actually, three or four times as much as—what we consider to be a reasonable valuation,”
Which is it, Scott? Are you drowning in your own fantasy pool? Do you really value “an anthem for a whole new generation” at a measly 100 grand? What is my life as a Canadian worth? Two cents? How is it that the people who are supposed to safegaurd our culture have no appreciation for the VALUE of our culture. Scott Moore is a disgrace. Fire him, now. Have a contest to replace him. Any ordinary Canadian who loves his country would be more qualified.
CBC’s decision to drop the Hockey Night In Canada theme song, despite public outcry, is one which will now live forever in infamy.
A textbook case of mismanagement and terrible decision making to be held up as a case-study in poor judgment for generations to come.
The Hockey Night In Canada theme can NEVER be replaced.
CBC’s idiotic, ill-conceived, American Idol-esque “contest” to “find a new tune to replace” the Hockey Night In Canada theme is a laughable exercise which is doomed to fail miserably.
The charade will, however, provide excellent fodder for mockery; as well as provoke unintentional mirth over the coming months.
Come September, when I and millions of other Canadians tune in for the start of the new hockey season - happily, and thanks to CTV - we will be doing so on TSN, RDS, or CTV television, to the sound of the Hockey Night In Canada theme song, playing at full volume!
CTV - more the fool!
And those who hold onto the need for the theme: you don’t have to pay ANYTHING to hum it for comfort, or sing it out loud in the shower, or have it play on & on & on & on & on…in your head. That’s FREE.
Yes, whenever my generation hears it, they’ll associate it with HNIC. But there’ll be a newer perhaps more appropriate theme for the current & next generations. THAT’S progress!
When I was a student at Carleton University in the early 90s, they suspended the men’s rugby team due to some dirty chants they sang involving foeti. Fifteen years later, the idea that 20 year old girls might be offended at anything directed at a foetus is so laughable that I now see the move for what it was: feigned offence as an attack on a symbol of masculinity.
Later, the men’s football team was eliminated, ostensibly due to funding, but even when the community upped the money on their own they were told that for gender parity purposes the men’s football team would not be reinstated.
Both moves were, with the benefit of hindsight, attacks on men. And so is the CBC’s decision on the HNIC theme. Don’t give me this story that it was about money; it was about destroying yet another national symbol, a symbol associated with masculinity, Hockey Night In Canada, and that becomes more obvious the more one accepts how stridently the CBC injects feminism into each HNIC broadcast.
Canadian Broadcorping Castration indeed!.
Amazing that the people who come here shouting about how CBC wastes tax dollars apparently have no problem with shelling out $3 million of them for a 40 year old jingle. And how many of them would sign over millions to someone SUING THEM for the very property they are buying? Use some sense.
hnic theme bought ctv ctv own muchmusic and ctv espn co-own tsn disney new co-owner the hnic theme
The CBC is being responsible with taxpayer money. Am I reading that right?
From http://hockeytheme.com:
“We gave the CBC a license that was virtually identical to the one we had in place for most of the last ten years. This was the $500 per 3-hour game broadcast idea… not the multimillion dollar sole option that Mr. Moore of the CBC painted on this evening’s news.”
Go ahead and spin it Scott Moore!
We all know the CBC was intent on letting it go. On Friday, televised, Scott Moore said he had been in negotiations with Nettwerk Music Group for over a year for their “American Idol” type Contest to find a new song for HNiC.
[...] any event The CBC lost the deal with Scott Moore, executive director, CBC Television Sports saying: “The owner’s demand of $2.5 to 3 [...]
Greed is the name of the game….$2.5 - $3 million? Gimme a break, if the composer/publishing company was so concerned about the future of the song and it’s place in Canadian Heritage why didn’t they settle for around $1 million or even less?
Money talks and CTV shelled it out…
I worked for CBC Communications for many years and finally left the Mother Corpse - discouraged by the bureacracy, incompetence, in-fighting, nepotism, and utter lack of vision or leadership.
And now CBC has lost this iconic theme. Just one more idiotic thing to add to the neverending list of stupidity…
Great! Now they have the money to bring back the CBC Radio Orchestra…
Don’t get lost in the CBC spin (spinarama?).
CBC could have renewed the contract for the theme at $500 a game and none of this would have happened.
But it tried to use renewal as leverage to get Claman and the rights firm to settle their lawsuit over CBC making money selling Claman’s song as a ring tone.
Some bright light at 250 Front obviously said, “Let’s force their hand; the song isn’t worth anything outside Hockey Night in Canada.”
There were statements about how CBC couldn’t renew an agreement with a party that was suing it. Of course it could have and obviously it should have.
Heads should roll but they won’t and the CBC bashers are handed a fully loaded rocket launcher on a silver platter.
The one issue that’s being ignored in this debate is the possibility that HNIC may not be around much longer, at least as an over-the-air broadcast. On the French side it’s already gone.
The Ceeb… gowing downhill fast:
http://www.friends.ca/News/news06040801.asp
Vancouver – CBC will air more foreign programs than ever before on prime time English TV next autumn, defying CRTC licence expectations and confirming that CBC has lost touch with its public broadcasting purpose, says the watchdog group FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting.
CBC will regularly broadcast 7 hours of foreign, mostly US, programs during prime time. This is a substantial increase, eclipsing the highest level of foreign content ever tracked since FRIENDS first began monitoring CBC’s English television schedule in 1990. CBC has logged a steady increase since the current head of CBC English operations took charge of television in the summer of 2004.
This plan will place CBC in defiance of the CRTC’s broadcast licence expectation of 80% Canadian content during prime time and runs counter to the recommendation of Commons Heritage Committee in its recent report on CBC’s mandate “that prime-time hours, from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm Monday to Friday, on the CBC/Radio-Canada’s television networks, should be reserved for Canadian productions”.
“CBC is supposed to be about presenting Canada to its citizens, not American game shows and Hollywood movies,” ………..
Management salaries at the CBC are very high. Department heads make well over $200K and in sports much more than that. Cut 10% of the sales team and you would have your money. Did they think about maybe getting the song sponsored? Finally managing this outcome in the press was a bad call.
amazing how everyone is crying about a stupid song and even suggesting salary cuts to people at CBC just to save it. use some common sense people.
George Stroumboulopoulos said it best today on The Hour…the song is 40 years old. the maple leafs won the stanley cup in 1967…the song came out in 1968 and the leafs haven’t won since…maybe it’s bad luck LOL (for the leaf fans
anyways)
So, the composer of the theme tries to extort the CBC for way too much money (which the CBC thankfully rejected), and people see the CBC as being in the wrong? This is ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as it being a featured news story repeatedly for several days.
It’s a song, and used briefly as a theme. It had its time, now it’s time to move on. Get over it.
To “C” whose comment was “The CBC is being responsible with taxpayer money. Am I reading that right?”
Trust me, having worked there for too many years, I know that the CBC is NEVER responsible with taxpayer money.
Proof: in the early 1990s when Gérard Veilleux was President of the CBC, he hired Robert Pattillo as VP of Communications. Patilla the Hun, as he was known, decided that the logo with CBC/Société Radio-Canada spelled out looked unbalanced. So we changed the logo to read CBC/SRC – which meant updating business cards, letterhead, on-air promos, anywhere the logo was used. I don’t know the exact cost, but I’m sure it was substantive.
Gérard Veilleux finished his term as President and Robert Pattillo rushed out the door behind him. Enter Perrin Beatty (aka Howdy Doody). And what was his first order of business? He looked at the logo and said “no one will know what SRC means” – so IT WAS CHANGED BACK to read CBC/Société Radio-Canada.
That’s when it hit me – I was a hamster in a gigantic wheel and the wheel had the CBC logo on it. All that work done - and undone - for the whim of the ruling despot of the day.
CBC remains the most dysfunctional work environment that I’ve ever encountered. I still have many friends there who continually tell me that’s it worse than ever, although I honestly can’t imagine how that is possible.
Jeanette
Firstly, Jeanette. Where else have you worked? Every organization that I’ve been involved with has undergone major shifts with a new CEO. This is not unique to CBC or to a public corporation. But I digress…
I don’t see anyone here asking the question “why is the composer suing the CBC for 2.5 million dollars in the first place?” Obviously she’s pretty annoyed about something, which wouldn’t bode well for future negotiations around the renewal of the theme song. I’m not sure, but I’ve heard it has to do with the selling of ringtones. Could it be that CBC made it available without her consent? If so, that’s the bone head move and that’s why the rest of it fell apart. Scott Moore was in trouble on this one before he ever entered the building, maybe that’s why he was looking at alternatives over a year ago…
Hi Anon: I’ve had responsible positions in retail, broadcasting, entertainment and now academic environments.
The example I gave is one of many and as I mentioned, my friends who are still at the CBC bemoan the ongoing demoralizing work environment.
It’s often the case that you don’t realize just how unhealthy a work environment is until you leave it.
cheers, Jeanette
Scott Moore will forever be known as the guy who scored on his own net in overtime.
Dolores Claman will get her money from CTV for signing over the rights to the “Hockey Song” in perpetuity and eventually she’ll get her money from the lawsuit she filed against the CBC in 2004.
Maybe someone should think about putting Dolores Claman in charge of CBC Sports.
Good decision,addopt Stomping Tom’s music from his hockey song as a backgroun team for Hockey Night. Everybody knows it already Anna.
The HNIC theme song made it on the Colbert Report (conveniently aired on CTV).
He is claiming ownership and will use it promote American ideals. Starts at 3:32 of this clip
http://watch.ctv.ca/the-colbert-report/episodes/the-colbert-report—june-10-2008/#clip59087
Anon - the HNIC Theme composer was not suing the CBC for $2.5 Million. She, and/or her representatives, were renegotiation an existing contract. I know that socialists at the CBC would prefer the government to swoop in and steal her work product, but thankfully people and groups are still able to decide what the price of their good or service is. If it turns out to be too steep, they may be out of luck. In this case, CTV has paid what they and the composer feel is a fair price. CTV now bears the risk that they paid too much. I know it’s a crazy concept for socialist to allow individuals all this freedom, but it generally works.
$2.5 - $3 million dollars amortized over the lifetime of the song is not a bad investment. For those of you who may be interested, Dolores Clayman is still alive and kicking at the spry age of just 80 years old. She’s still got a lot of living to do and the rights for the song will still continue for an additional FIFTY years after the composers death according to copyright law.
CTV just got a fifty year plus asset that they can do with what they want. They’ll get mechanical royalties, performance royalties, licensing opportunities etc. CTV is pretty business savvy and I’ll bet they’ll recoup their investment within five years…the rest of the ride will be gravy.
Jeanette, saying the CBC is “never” responsible is not only wrong, but lowers your credibility.
I have seen many places where dollars are spent extremely well. No corporation this large is exempt from mistakes or indiscretion, or perhaps in this case poor decisions.
And the person who claimed management salaries are over 200K is also wrong. Make a claim like that, and be prepared to back that up.
So much angst over the CBC. You’re entitled. But really - stop making things up to prove your point about a theme song.
This all might have been avoided had someone properly cleared the song for those ring tone downloads. I am guessing, but I bet it brought in tens of dollars, too.