Winnipeg Free Press

This is, I believe, what’s referred to in the sports biz as “IN YOUR FACE!!!!”

Just hours after CBC’s crafty executives and rights-contract negotiators announced that they had quite generously offered to summon a mediator to try to resolve the HNIC-theme impasse, CTV/TSN delivered this crashing check into the end boards:

Toronto, ON (June 9, 2008) – CTV Inc., together with Copyright Music & Visuals, today announced that CTV Inc. has acquired all rights to ‘The Hockey Theme’ in perpetuity, preserving the song’s legacy and ensuring it will be heard on national television for years to come.  ‘The Hockey Theme’ song will now live on CTV Inc. properties TSN, RDS and across Canada on CTV during coverage of the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympics as outlined below. 
  The deal between CTV and Copyright Music & Visuals was agreed to in principle after the CBC publicly announced last Friday at 5 p.m. ET that a deal could not be reached with the rights holders.  Due diligence was completed earlier today.
 

The song, which was created by Vancouver’s Dolores Claman in 1968, will now be used in NHL broadcasts on TSN and RDS beginning this Fall.  In addition, CTV will utilize the song as part of its hockey coverage during the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. 
  “The song has a long and storied history in Canadian sports and has become ingrained in the hearts and minds of hockey fans across the country.  It is an iconic tune, embraced by Canadians everywhere, and we felt it was imperative to save it.  We know we will be in hockey forever, so there’s no doubt this acquisition will create value for us,” said Rick Brace, President, Revenue, Business Planning and Sports, CTV Inc.  “It’s an honour and a privilege to own such a cherished piece of Canadiana.”
 

“I am very moved by how so many Canadians have taken the hockey theme to heart.  We are so pleased the song has found a new home,” said Claman.  “Throughout our negotiations, CTV displayed a tremendous amount of respect for my family and the song.  ‘The Hockey Theme’ means so much to Canadians, and we know it’s in good hands with CTV.” 
  The announcement complements TSN’s new six-year multi-platform NHL deal, featuring more coverage of Canadian teams than ever before with at least one Canadian team in every game.  Earlier this year, RDS extended its exclusive rights agreement with the Montreal Canadiens through the 2011-12 season. 

If the timeline information in CTV’s release is accurate, what this means is not only that CBC’s attempt to play hardball with the theme’s composer resulted in the People’s Network dithering away its relationship with the song, but that at the same time CBC brass were preparing through the weekend to execute the cunning hire-a-mediator gambit on Monday, Ms. Claman was already at home rolling (figuratively) around on a big pile of CTV money.

Ooops. The song lives on, and from this fall onward, every time a hockey fan watches a game on TSN, he/she will be reminded of how CBC got its jersey pulled over its head in this tussle.

In hockey slang, what CTV pulled off today would be “a great deke.” And in the parlance of the puck, CBC would likely be referred to as “a pylon.”

Highlight of the night? Indeed.

How far, you ask, is too far?

THIS far:

 By Bal Brach

Canwest News Service

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s iconic Hockey Night in Canada theme song, known for decades as Canada’s “second national anthem,” will no longer be used in hockey broadcasts, according to the song’s composer.

After 14 years of hearing countless stories of how the song has affected the lives of Canadians, the man in charge of the copyrights to the music says even he’s hopeful the CBC will change its tune and renew their licensing agreement.

“There’s a lot more at stake here than just business,” said John R. Ciccone, who works on behalf of the theme song composer Dolores Claman. “This is Canadian history — Canadian heritage.”

The jingle is one of the longest running theme songs in broadcast history and slated to celebrate its 40th anniversary next year.

“This is a very sad day, especially for Dolores. it’s quite difficult,” Ciccone added.

“Dolores keeps saying, ‘what about the fans?’ It’s a big big motivation to try and keep things going (with the CBC).”

Thursday night’s Stanley Cup final game six was the last time “dunt- da-dunt- da-dunt,” was played because CBC decided to move in a “new direction,” according to Ciccone.

He said the CBC advised Claman that it is not prepared to enter into a new license agreement with respect to the use of the song.

Calls to CBC were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Within hours of the news that CBC had dropped its Hockey Night in Canada theme, there were already two Facebook groups created in protest, and another online petition to save the song.

Ralph Mellanby, the executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada for 22 years, said he wanted to buy out the rights to the music decades ago.

“The original contract was never done properly. They signed the contract with residuals, which I would’ve never done. CBC and Hockey Night in Canada have been living with this for years, this constant problem they’ve had with no buyout and constantly having to renegotiate the music. Nobody ever thought it would become the second most popular song in Canada outside of the national anthem. And that’s been the problem that they’ve always had to renegotiate it.”

Meanwhile, the song’s composer, Dolores Claman released a statement Wednesday. “I am saddened by the decision of the CBC to drop the Hockey Night in Canada Theme after our lengthy history together,” said Claman. “I nevertheless respect its right to move in a new direction.”

The composition was written by Claman in 1968. The current license agreement expired at the end of the 2007-2008 NHL playoffs.

Ciccone said the CBC has been offered a new license on terms that are virtually identical to those that have existed for the past decade, but the broadcaster has decided not to renew.

“We kept making suggestions and ideas on how to keep things going. We’re offering virtually the same licence that they’ve been dealing with the last several years. As a gesture of goodwill we had no increase in fees,” he said.

Ciccone said he has received thousands of requests from all over the world to use the song, whether it be for a class project or wedding. He said many Canadians abroad, even those that aren’t hockey fans, have requested the ringtone because they feel home sick. “There’s a wonderful symbiotic relationship between the theme and the TV show… It’s one of those really rare moments of magic where everything works together well.”

Ciccone said there were other CBC Hockey Night in Canada theme songs before the classic “dunt- da-dunt- da-dunt,” tune but none lasted 40 years.

“People are very attached to it. It’s a very personal thing to people. It gives them a sense of unity, Canadiana, nostalgia. There’s just a lot of really, really deep personal stuff in there.”

It costs the CBC $500 to use the theme for each game broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada.

In 2004, Claman sued the CBC alleging the public broadcaster repeatedly used the distinctive theme song in broadcasts not covered under her licence agreement and refused requests to negotiate additional fees.

Ciccone said the resolution of the ongoing litigation is not a precondition of the new proposed licence agreement.

The theme song was originally commissioned by the MacLaren advertising agency in Toronto, according to the website hockeytheme.com.

The agency was looking for a powerful commercial jingle suitable for hockey.

It soon became used as the theme song for the CBC hockey broadcasts and has been running ever since.

What are YOUR thoughts on this one? The betting here in CouchLand is that the public outcry that has already begun will force the nickel-pinching knuckleheads at the CBC to reverse this decision long before the Cup has traveled to more than one Wings player’s hometown.

 They thought they faced a backlash when they threatened to knock Don Cherry off the air? That was nuthin’.

Well, I’ve got to admit, I really didn’t see THAT coming…..

 Not that I’m upset — in fact, quite the contrary — with David Cook being crowned this season’s American Idol. I thought throughout the Top-10 pare-down that he was the most distinctive and daring of the bunch, but there seemed to be an inevitability to the notion that walking emoticon David Archuleta was going to win this thing.

 In fairness, each would have been a legit pick. Archuleta’s voice is pretty much perfect; I just preferred the slightly lived-in, slightly rough-around-the-edges qualities Cook brought to the contest. Archuleta struck me as a younger, latter-day version of Clay Aiken — destined, eventually, not to rock the world but to wow ‘em on Broadway. Cook, perhaps, could follow in the footsteps of non-winner Chris Daughtry, who seems to have found record-biz success more or less on his own terms after getting the boot prematurely from Idol.

So here’s the question: given the fact he’s intent on maintaining (or, more to the point, establishing) rock-star cred in the aftermath of his Idol run, could winning the crown actually hurt David Cook more than help? Would being rejected by the Idol audience have given his “cool” factor a Daughtry-sized boost?

Also, one other random thought after watching last night’s over-long (but actually pretty entertaining) Idol sendoff:  after having endured the series run and fallen short of their dream, mustn’t it be a soul-crushing contractual ordeal for straight-ahead singers like Carly Smithson and Amanda Overmyer and offbeat performers like Jason Castro to be forced to spend the next few months  doing those white-leisure-suited, clumsily choreographed, Brady-Bunch-ish showtune renditions night after night on the American Idol concert tour? Despite the paycheques, my goodness, that’s gotta be a grind….

What are your thoughts? Did the best David win?  (and while we’re at it, was the Kristi-Yamaguchi mirror-ball grab the right Dancing result? I’m sayin’ yes to that one…)

“I’ve lost my reign as the dumbest Survivor EVER!”

The structure and semantics may have been a bit shaky, but ol’ Gravedigger James was absolutely spot-on with the sentiment in his tribal-council jury-bench declaration last night after the ladies of the Black Widow Society lured poor, slack-jawed waffle-cone filler Erik into their web and then snuffed him with almost-uncomfortable glee.

 It was, at once, the saddest and the funniest moment in Survivor history. Dude, dude, dude, dude, DUDE – the one thing you NEVER do, unless you’ve got a brace of hidden immunity idols in your back pockets, is hand the hard-won immunity necklace to someone else.

But Erik did. To Nat, no less. Sheeeesh. And now, Ozzie and Jason can feel not quite so stupid about the way the comfortably cackling conspiratorettes  sent them packing at recent TCs.

I still think Cirie’s going to win, but I’ve switched my vote-off lineup card to show nasty Nat going next.

Your thoughts?

Also, I’ve been wracking my brain, and I really can’t think of a more shockingly boneheaded play in all the previous seasons of Survivor. Can you???

The Idol field is down to three; the roster of Dancing duos has been reduced to four; and the Survivor site has just five unhappy campers — four full-of-themselves females and just one very twitchy guy — left.

Time, then, for some fearless and foolhardy end-of-season predictions, don’t'cha think?

First — and, I think, easiest to handicap — is American Idol, which I am pre-emptively stating is reduced to three even before tonight’s elimination show, because dreadful dreadlocked lyric-dropper Jason Castro is as good as gone. That leaves the dueling Davids, Archuleta and Cook, and late bloomer Syesha Mercado as the series’ seventh-season finalists.  As good as she has been in the run-up to the final song-selection showdown, the betting here is — as it has been for some time — that we’re going to see a Dave-off, Idol-style, in the final episode. My heart’s behind Cook, but my head tells me America’s going to vote for Archuleta.

On the Dancing floor, CouchBoy’s predicted elimination order goes like this: Marissa Jaret Winokur gets hoofed next, because her fan base isn’t big enough; Jason Taylor gets sacked in the final-three shakedown; and then one-armed bandit Cristian de la Fuente comes up short in the sympathy-vote department, leaving former figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi as the deserving winner of the mirror-ball bauble.

Over at Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites, picking a winner isn’t much easier than staying in the game after you’ve found the hidden immunity idol. It’s pretty obvious that gullible guy Erik is gone as soon as he fails to win an immunity idol — which should happen as soon as the challenge involves brains rather than brawn — but the more interesting scenario involves just exactly how the Black Widow Bunch decides which of its members will be, er, dis-membered first. My guess is that Amanda will get her torch snuffed first, with the ever-more-cartoonishly-evil Natalie getting her comeuppance shortly after that. Which leaves a final-jury-vote pairing of Parvati and Cirie;  the CB perspective is that Cirie, while quite unpopular will get props from her former island peeps for having been the game’s master manipulator.

So there you have it — David Archuleta, Kristi Yamaguchi, Cirie Fields.

Any questions? Disagreements, perhaps?

Here’s a quick item I thought was worth posting, just for the sake of amusing, seasonal, Hallmark-holiday squabbling. The folks at TiVo have released the results of a survey that asked PVR-empowered couchspuds to name their favourite teevee moms. Top spot went to The Cosby Show’s  Claire Huxtable (as portrayed by Phylicia Rashad). Personally, I think the results have a generational skew, given the relative rarity of “golden age” viewers who’d a) respond to such a poll, and b) know what the heck a TiVo is. I like the list, but would definitely have preferred to see  June Cleaver (Leave It To Beaver) – the classic, stereotypical, time-warped TV mommy, played by Barbara Billingsley – much closer to the top. Like, No. 1, maybe.

Take a look at the list, and tell me what YOU think — whose couch-connected apron strings are you still clinging to?

TiVo’s Top TV Moms
1.      Clair Huxtable: The Cosby Show – 48%

2.      Caroline Ingalls: Little House on the Prairie – 45%

3.      Marion Cunningham: Happy Days – 45%

4.      Marge Simpson: The Simpsons – 43%

5.      Wilma Flintstones: The Flintstone – 43%

6.      Mrs. Brady: Brady Bunch – 31%

7.      Mrs. Partridge: The Partridge Family – 29%

8.      June Cleaver: Leave it to Beaver – 26%

9.      Vivian Banks: Fresh Prince of Bel Air – 25%

10.  Rosanne: Rosanne – 23%
11.  Carmella Soprano: The Sopranos – 18%
12.  Marie Barone: Everybody Loves Raymond – 18%

13.  Janet King: Road to Avonlea – 18%

14.  Peggy Bundy: Married with Children – 17%

15.  Bree Van de Kamp: Desperate Housewives – 14%

16.  Emma Leroy: Corner Gas – 14%

17.  Mrs. Costanza: Seinfeld – 13%

18.  Norma Arnold: The Wonder Years – 12%

19.  Christine “Spike” Nelson: Degrassi: The Next Generation – 10%

20.  Sarah Hamoudi: Little Mosque on the Prairie – 7%

Here’s a piece of fab news for fans of the best of this season’s wave of sci-fi-flavoured new dramas: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, has been renewed for 2008-09.

 Fox announced the sophomore-season pickup earlier today; the network released also announced that Brian Austin Greene will become a full-time cast member when this spring’s bomb-blast cliffhanger is resolved.

Despite having to carry the full weight of the Terminator movies’ mythology, T:SCC emerged as the best of a super-powered rookie crop that also included the likes of Journeyman (trip canceled), Chuck (rebooting for ‘08/’09), The Bionic Woman (unplugged), Moonlight (surviving, but sucking) and New Amsterdam (barely undead). Lena Headey succeeded, in spades, at reinventing the Sarah Connor character as her own creation, and Summer Glau  emerged as one of the season’s true breakout stars (though there will be, thanks to the season-ending explosion, some reassembly required).

CouchBoy, for one, is pretty darned excited about another season of T:SCC.

How ’bout you?

Back from a week away from TVLand whilst covering the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, and the biggest news during the yuk-filled working hiatus had to do with Brent Butt’s decision that the next season of CTV’s Corner Gas will be its last.

It’s the right call. After all he’s done, both for CTV and for the Canadian sitcom — which he single-handedly revived and reinvented — Butt has earned the right to go out on top. Corner Gas has been a huge hit since its pilot episode, and its unexpected and unprecedented success has afforded the series’ cast a level Canadian-TV stardom the likes of which (no disrespect intended to the Trailer Park guys) has never been seen before.

The reason Corner Gas became as huge as it is is pretty simple, but none too common in the realm of teevee: CTV allowed the funny guys to be in charge of the funny and didn’t meddle in the creative process. Butt and writer/producer Mark Farrell, both well known in these parts for the smart, clean, hilarious standup acts they used to bring to Rumor’s Comedy Club, developed a sitcom that celebrated Butt’s small-town Saskatchewan roots without surrendering to the obvious cornpone jokes or slackjawed-yokel stereotypes. Instead, the denizens of Dog River, despite their simple nature, were portrayed as sneaky smart with a level of uncomplicated sophistication that truly made their town just a little bit hipper than whereverthehell the rest of us happen to live.

And now, Butt has decided, Season 6 will be Corner Gas’s last 19-episode fill-up. Since he’s essentially done for Canadian TV what Seinfeld did for U.S. sitcoms, he certainly deserves the same consideration that Jerry received in deciding when to say goodbye.

Let him drive off into the sunset with his head held high, I say. You’ll be able to watch him go for three days, anyway.

What do you think? Is Butt making the right call, or should he stick around for as long as he can?

The speculation continues over whether the show that’s arguably the best major-network drama on TV — Friday Night Lights — will return for a third season.

And the most recent rumblings on the showbiz grapevine are favourable, as evidenced by this wire-service report that moved today:

No deal yet but producer optimistic about return of ‘Friday Night Lights’

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — “Friday Night Lights” just may score another season.

Executive producer Jason Katims said he’s “incredibly optimistic” about a third season for the drama, which has been in limbo since the writers strike ended.

“There’s no deal yet for the show,” Katims said Wednesday at the William S. Paley Television Festival. “But we are being incredibly optimistic that’s going to happen and happen soon.”

Although a critical hit, ratings were low for the show, which depicts small-town Texas life where high school football is king.

When viewers last saw the Dillon Panthers, the team was gearing up for the playoffs. Because of the writers strike, which halted most TV production, seven of the 22 episodes NBC ordered for season two weren’t produced.

Fans have fought to keep the show on the air, launching www.SaveFridayNightLights.tv and asking viewers to send donations to fill NBC entertainment chief Ben Silverman’s mailbox with miniature plastic footballs.

“I think the answer is going to be pretty soon,” Katims said. “I have a feeling we’re two or three weeks away from knowing.”

A spokeswoman for NBC said Thursday the network had no comment.

Katims said a third season would likely pick up after the planned events of season two. However, the series would integrate unused story lines into the new season, which he said could begin filming as soon as July.

–

Despite NBC’s none-too-kind scheduling of FNL (sure, it’s kinda cutesy to place Friday Night Lights on Friday night, but shouldn’t someone have figured out that on those evenings, many in the show’s core viewership — meaning fans of high-school football — would be out watching actual football rather than home watching a show about football?), the series basically held its own ratings-wise this season while evolving dramatically into one of the smartest, most compelling and most fully developed shows of the past decade. The fact that Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton have not taken home Emmys for their efforts in creating TV’s most fascinating married couple is nothing short of a joke.

Don’t know about you, but ol’ CouchBoy is keeping all his fingers crossed for a speedy full-season FNL renewal.

Are you a fan? Why/why not?

When it comes to following my fave “unscripted” shows, I’m the first to admit I’m a total rube who’s willing to accept almost all the obviously contrived confrontations, created-in-the-editing-room villainy and had-to-be-suggested-by-the-producers plot twists that make for entertaining “reality” TV.

But even as an admitted sucker for a good reality-show spin, I found myself flummoxed by the level of contrivance in this week’s installment of Survivor: Micronesia. Specifically, the unreal nature of the “reality” foisted on viewers during this week’s reward challenge, which smacked of stage-managed tribal strategy and an outcome that, if not rigged, was so weighted by a “dramatic” choice that the final outcome could only have gone one way.

The challenge, which pitted the reconfigured tribes in a tied-together-in-tandems game of grab-the-flag tag played in a muddy, wood-barrier-filled obstacle course, was one of the most brutally punishing in the show’s history. The list of injuries suffered by the players — Penner’s punctured knee (which looks to take a badly infected turn in next week’s installment), Parvati’s fat lip, Ami’s tweaked knee — proves that you can’t fake the physical stuff. But the way the challenge ended, with the unlikely pairing of firefighting mesomorph Joel dragging wispy pageant coach Chet through the course like a Raggedy Not-Andy doll while trying unsuccessfully to catch Eliza and Parvati, simply didn’t pass the smell test. Seriously, Joel and Chet, with the game on the line, when you’ve got you’ve got a pair of whippets like Ozzy and Erik rested and ready to run? Even in the dizzy land of reality-TV dramatics, this one defies logic — unless, of course, the final pairings were “suggested” by the show’s producers in order to a) create a cartoon-violence-filled finale to rival the wildest of the Wile E./Roadrunner chases, and b) set up an intriguing tribal council showdown.

I dunno. The whole thing just felt like a pro-wrestling storyline to me. Fake, fake, fake, fake, fake.

And remember, I’m the guy who LOVES suspending disbelief and buying into this “reality” TV chicanery.

What about you? Did you believe this latest bit of Micronesian story management? Or do you agree that Burnett & Co. have stretched their version of the truth a bit too far?