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Canadian TV Switch Displeases Americans

DETROIT — It was an instinctual move, honed through years of watching the Olympics on television. Tom August, a resident of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., changed channels to see what was on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It’s an option available to many American border cities like Detroit, Buffalo and Seattle, and a secret escape for Americans who do not want to watch NBC.

But as August soon realized, that option was not available for the Vancouver Games.

CTV, Canada’s largest private broadcaster, won the rights to broadcast the Vancouver Games, and August’s cable company does not carry it.

“I thought it was weird the CBC was showing ‘Coronation Street’ during the opening ceremonies,” August said. “I’ve just always gone back and forth between NBC and the CBC, usually sticking more with the CBC. It took a second, then it hit me: I’m not going to get to see the Olympics on the CBC. I am going to have to watch NBC.

“I’m not happy about that, because I think NBC does a terrible job. I want to watch sports live, not watch NBC’s commentators talking in front of a fake fireplace.”

August, 38, is not alone in his CBC withdrawal. Watching CBC for Olympic coverage has been a tradition for many Americans since 1992. But CBC was outbid by a broadcasting group of Rogers Media and Bell Globemedia, which owned CTV and is now known as CTVglobemedia. The group paid $153 million for the rights to become Canada’s Olympic broadcaster for the Vancouver Games and the 2012 Games in London.

Dan Imby of Shelby Township, Mich., also found himself wandering from NBC to CBC. CTV is available over the air, but most viewers have replaced their antennas with cable or satellite television.

Imby cannot get CTV, and he says he feels stuck with NBC.

“I love watching the hockey on the CBC because they know the sport, they love it all,” Imby, 46, said. “This is only going to be the biggest event of the Olympics, hockey in Canada, and we have no hockey on the CBC. No Don Cherry, no Ron MacLean. Terrible. I always liked how the Canadians showed everything, not just their own teams.”

The loss of the CBC seems to be providing a boost to NBC affiliates along the border. There is no way to determine how many Americans watch Canadian programming, as ratings are determined only within the country.

Ratings for NBC affiliates in Seattle, Detroit and Buffalo have risen in the first week of the Vancouver Games. Detroit’s affiliate, WDIV, had a 55 percent rating increase for the first few days of coverage over the same period of the 2006 Turin Games.

“It’s certainly a difference for us not having the CBC as competition in our market,” said Marla Drutz, WDIV’s vice president and general manager. “I’ve worked in this market for 25 years, and that’s always been a constant during the Olympics — there was a choice of what channel you wanted to watch. The rest of the country never had that choice. I think that’s why it may be jarring for some people not to have the CBC.

“But we’re thrilled with how the Games are playing out for us on NBC; our ratings are strong.”

Buffalo’s NBC affiliate had a 10 percent increase in its ratings over 2006. And perhaps not so coincidentally, Buffalo is also one of the few places in the United States where CTV is available on cable systems.

Sharon Lindstedt, a resident of Buffalo, has been watching CTV’s Olympic coverage.

“It’s better than NBC, but it’s not as good as the CBC,” Lindstedt, 53, said. “I’m trying to like the CTV. They’re a bit flashier than CBC. I know I’m lucky to have it. There is a clear difference between them and NBC. But I’d prefer CBC over them all. They’re more sophisticated, not as flashy.”

She added, “NBC would do well to learn from them.”

Frustrated American CBC Olympics fans are taking their protest to the Internet.

Kurt O’Keefe, a bankruptcy lawyer based in Detroit, started a Facebook page that longs for the CBC.

His Facebook group description reads: “In Detroit, we miss CBC. They covered the Games as if they were about the athletes and the competition, and not self-promotion of network personalities.” O’Keefe, a resident of Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., said he was resigned to trying to make the best of this situation.

“I know we’ve been lucky to have options of how we watched the Olympics,” O’Keefe, 56, said. “Maybe we got spoiled. We’re now finding out how the Olympics looks to the rest of the country who can’t watch Canadian TV. Once you’ve had that choice, it makes it really hard to go back to just having NBC.”

A correction was made on 
Feb. 24, 2010

An article in some editions on Sunday about the Olympic television coverage available to Americans living near the Canadian border misidentified the owner of CTV, which is broadcasting the Vancouver Games in Canada. It is CTVglobemedia, not Rogers Communications.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section SP, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Canadian TV Switch Displeases Americans. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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