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Bell Media needs to commit more if they want HNIC from CBC

It is no secret that Bell Media is in an active bidding war with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with the Canadian media and television giants trying to kill off the government funded television station which stays alive largely due to its NHL
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It is no secret that Bell Media is in an active bidding war with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with the Canadian media and television giants trying to kill off the government funded television station which stays alive largely due to its NHL telecasts and being the only option for non cable owners to watch the league.

Bell Media keeps the NHL to TSN which is still a speciality channel, Canada's ESPN to CTV's ABC if you will. That move likely is what will keep the CBC alive as the two sides continue to prepare to bid for the rights to Hockey Night in Canada, a Canadian institution so grand that NBC ripped it off for its Sunday NFL coverage not too long ago.

If you were to label how much HNIC means to the CBC, think of how much Match of the Day means to the British Broadcasting Corporation, then take away all of the BBC's other programming and give the BBC direct competition that holds all the United States programming that Canadians want to watch and you will see why the CBC is desperately trying to come up with enough money to match what Bell Media will bid to the NHL when the rights come up at the end of August.

That factor alone should be enough to enable the CBC to make the move to strike a deal before its exclusive negotiation window with the National Hockey League expires at the end of August. That's what happened in 2007, when the industry talk had CBC losing the property it has built into a national institution over 60 years.

In the end, CBC came up with an extra $40 million a year and made a few concessions, including giving TSN access to more playoff games involving Canadian teams to avoid Bell Media swooping in and making an offer Gary Bettman and the NHL would be unable to refuse.

Sources say that scenario is likely to play out again in one form or another. While the Globe and Mail has reported last week that the NHL is seeking $200 million a season for the HNIC package, a figure that would likely put the CBC scrambling to find more advertising revenues to avoid Bell Media going ahead and paying the ludicrous sum.

It is unlikely according to insider information that either party will be taken advantage of by the NHL, who have no problem in benefiting from this bidding war despite making little concessions to make Canadian NHL fans happy, but what is very likely is CTV losing out on the bidding war due to their foolish stubbornness in airing hockey on their over-the-airwaves network instead of TSN on Saturday nights and throughout the NHL Playoffs, opting to keep US sitcoms and lucrative syndication deals on their airwaves over the ratings giant that is NHL hockey.

Part of that is due to the fact that CTV benefited from the lack of showing sports on its airwaves with the CBC's low non-NHL budget and schedule flexibility for US shows, airing popular programming such as sitcoms and dramas to high ratings that have built the brand of CTV and Bell Media to the point where the company dominates the Canadian programming market alongside Rogers Communications.

That has turned into a problem for the CTV as the NHL knows that it can't have its main weekend television draw in HNIC go off the over-the-air airwaves to move to a speciality channel in TSN no matter how much the three letter network attempts to grow its NHL programming. The fact of the matter is that even as cable and dish packages become more and more a part of common life, many fans of the NHL still only use basic channels as their way of watching the league, especially in Canada where the CBC is often the only channel senior citizens or rural residents have to catch the league. A partnership the NHL is not going to risk for an extra handful of millions.

So we are headed for a situation where Bell Media is either going to have to agree to show hockey on CTV or deal with the fact that the CBC isn't going anywhere as the network needs the advertising money that the NHL brings just to stay on the airwaves as the Conservative government continues to cut funds to the broadcasting corporation (a political story for another day, and another column).

That need for hockey will always put CBC in the race for the major broadcasting rights of the NHL as the channel needs the league as much as it needs them, matching the NHL's need for over-the-air broadcasting and schedule flexibility with CBC's lack of programming and need for an elite rights deal to compete with CTV's slew of major US sitcoms and dramas. That pairing puts the ball in CTV's corner with the message plain and clear that CTV will have to put hockey on its major network in order to get the Stanley Cup and Canadian teams on Saturday night.

Gary Bettman is fully aware of his already icy relationship with the Canadian hockey fan, the last thing he will want to do is be the guy who kills the CBC and hockey being free on television to all Canadians by allowing TSN to get what would be essentially exclusive rights to the NHL's best programming. A move that has not exactly worked out for the NBA or the NCAA as TSN's two networks simply do not have enough air time to program everything they purchase rights to, the NHL will not want to see a similar situation happen.

Still don't rule out Bell Media as they have outbid the CBC for several "Must win" rights wars in the 00's including the exclusive rights to the CFL and the Grey Cup as well as the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and HNIC's own theme song. If they want to beat the CBC, they usually do it if they want it enough.

Will Bell Media cave and put hockey on its channel dedicated to showing episodes of The Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, and The Amazing Race? It is unlikely, but it is likely the only chance they have in killing off the CBC for good as its competition.

We will have to wait until at least the end of August to find out, but the CBC would be wise to reach an agreement with the NHL before we can even get to that point as Bell Media seems hellbent on slowly killing off the staple of Canadian broadcasting's rights to the crown jewel of Canadian sports broadcasting, Hockey Night in Canada.