Harris/Decima confirms they conducted a poll in which several questions about the Hockey Night in Canada theme are asked. But, the research company say that nobody is paying them to do it.
Seems the survey company is doing it on their own “as a business development undertaking.” But, for now, “The CBC is not involved in this undertaking and did not pay for these questions,” Harris/Decima’s Kevin Loiselle says.
UPDATED: In fact, the poll only had another company’s name on it (Canadian Press) because CP and Harris/Decima have a media sponsorship arrangement whereby CP’s name appears on many of the surveys H/D publishes. According to H/D, they’ll release the full results (with demographic data, etc.) to any group for free. It’s the analysis of that data where they would begin charging.
The poll was conducted nationally and is is now completed. The company says it doesn’t have a timetable for release yet.
The exact text of the five questions were:
- Would you say that you are an avid fan, an occasional follower, or not really interested in NHL Hockey?
- As you may have heard, the theme song for CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts will in the future be used by CTV for its hockey broadcasts on TSN. The owner of the theme song wanted to increase the royalties for the use of the song. The CBC and the owner were unable to agree on a fee for the rights, and CTV offered the song’s owner over 1 Million dollars for the rights for five years. Would you say that you are very happy, happy, sad or very sad at this development, or that it doesn’t matter to you one way or another?
- In your opinion, should the CBC have been willing to offer over a million dollars to keep the rights, or did the CBC do the right thing by not offering to pay that much?
- The CBC has said that it will run a national contest to find a new song for its Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, do you think this is a very good, good, bad or very bad idea?
- Do you believe that as a result of losing the familiar theme song and replacing it with a new one, that the audience for CBC’s Hockey broadcasts will grow in the future, stay the same, or shrink?
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Canada’s national (and influential) newsmagazine, Maclean’s, puts a story about the CBC on its front cover, yet there’s no mention of it on this “blog” anywhere.
Are such things of no interest to the CBC? Or is it simply that this blog is nothing more than selective propaganda.
It’s hard to imagine that such a survey has any value or credibility when it’s already established on the public record that questions 2 and 3 are based on a false premise. The songwriter was offering to allow CBC Sports to use her song for $500 per usage - with a 15% increase after two years. The terms and conditions of CBC’s buyout offer made such a deal untenable to the owner. And, in any event, Scott Moore announced the plug was pulled on the negotiations before Ms. Claman sold it to CTV.
If the CBC wrote the poll questions, it would be:
“…should the CBC have been willing to offer more than a million dollars to keep the rights…”
“I think they’ve lost the pulse of the public emotion,”
As the pressure has risen, the show’s masters at CBC have responded precipitously, often demonstrating a shocking ignorance of what drew people to their product in the first place.
This despite the broadcaster’s admission that it had repeatedly used the song in breach of its agreement, having sold its broadcasts in Japan, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom without paying Claman.
For CTV, the move was a no-brainer: the network’s sports channel TSN, along with its French-language service RDS, had spent years trying to build the sort of affinity with viewers that Claman’s song epitomizes. “This theme is part of the fabric of the country,” Brace told Maclean’s following the announcment. “It’s an institution, and any time you can engage your audience on that level you do it. That’s how you build a brand.”
“What Hockey Night in Canada is really about is hockey,” Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports, told one reporter. “Everything else is just window dressing.”
~ excerpts from the Maclean’s article
(Don Cherry - window dressing)
what does that have to do with this story, Allan?? You’re always just wanting to stir things up….
The post is designated as being related to the topics: “HNIC Theme, Hockey Night in Canada”, and older posts usually have their comments closed (for some reason) so I chose to post here.
There’s a tendency for all media to “stir things up”, including Maclean’s and others.
Not at all.
I’m merely … sharing … culture.
Here are the results of the poll…probably worth a post of its own, rather than being burried in these comments but here it is:
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hFk4SIVSSgAFGG4sZ05aqyHHnAkQ
Tonight we profile the top three finalists of WRITE THE CBC’S NEW HOCKEY THEME MUSIC CONTEST .
We’ll go live across the country as each contestant performs their composition in front of a home town crowd.
Our judges for tonight - Gordie Howe, Celine Dion and … George Strombolopulos!
ANNCR: George you especially liked this first entry.
G: Yes, Alex, and I recently spoke to dude who wrote the song, like actually, with a pen! And paper!
(to video of Burton)
“yeah man, we were like drunk in this club and, I was on stage and just riffin’ and really, nobody had anywhere else to go, and I just started like kind of, you know, like, just sayin’ what came into my head.
‘American hockey … stay away from me-eh …’
ANNCR: Celine, you had something important you wanted to say.
C: Yes, Alex, I just wanted to say to all my Canadian brothers and sisters that I think it’s really great the way the CBC tried to save face with this contest.
And because I think David Foster has enough awards and money, I chose my fellow Canuck Mike Myers, currently starring in “The Love Guru” at theatres everywhere, and his song “I Love Hockey”.
(to video of Mike in wig making jokes)
ANNCR: Mr. Howe, we realize that music is not your, let’s say primary talent, but you must have enjoyed at least some of the entries.
GORD: I don’t see why you can’t just use the same music we’ve always had. Rent it if you have to.
ANNCR: Alright then. Tonight’s winner will find their song not only being played over and over again, as part of an enterprise that is the most lucrative in Canada, but will also receive a certified cheque … for $2,500 !
Well the “no client” defence is a bit odd since Macleans is saying Decima Harris carried this out for the Canadian press. They would be the client, so I am finding all of this pretty weird, and it appears as if there is some serious agitprop happening now.
Who to believe?
Another rather disingenous point to all this is the idea that CTV would have ever bought this poll. If you take the questions as stated by Harris Decima in this blog;
http://www.insidethecbc.com/hnicpoll2, let alone the questions as described in http://www.insidethecbc.com/hnicpoll
then it is laughable to even consider that CTV would have bought the poll because the questions were so clearly crafted to get a pro-cbc response.
Does anyone actually think the questions, with all their assumptive caveats would have produced any other result?
Why not just ask a simple question like:
Do you agree with the cbc that they could not afford to re-license/buy the HNIC theme?
That is a simple question which would give an accurate result about how people felt about the HNIC theme controversy and the cbc’s actions.
But instead the Harris Decima poll does semantic acrobatics, infers in the question that Dolores Claman wanted too much money, and then asks how they feel about that. How could the respondent answer any differently when they are being led by the nose in order to answer with a specific result?
It would be like asking the following
“You know of course that Mr X has previous convictions for murder. He is currently on trial for the murder of his wife. Do you think he’s gulity?”
The answer to the above will be very different with a sample of say 100 respondents, had the straight up question been asked:
“Mr X is on trial for murder of his wife, do you think he is gulity?”
This is semantics at its most insidious when used for marketing or propaganda purposes. Its why lawyers are so careful about what information is introduced into a trial.
So the argument that they would have their poll and let the results land as they may is complete rubbish and i think looking at the convoluted manner of questions clearly demonstrates a loaded poll which was always going to exonertae the cbc. Hence there could only be one party for whom this poll is valuable….CBC.