Canada Wins The Gold... In Airing Commercials and Pointless Fillers

So, I was actually going to write about how awesome the Olympic coverage has been so far from the Broadcast Consortium. The fact that there are 3 big networks showing coverage (4 if you include OLN, which I don't because it's not in HD) and there is really good online viewing is really great. However, I'm sitting here watching the coverage right now... It's about an hour after Canada won a silver in Snowboard Cross, and on CTV they're showing fluff pieces about the atheletes, on Sportsnet they're showing a replay of the Snowboard Cross final that THEY JUST SHOWED LIVE AN HOUR AGO, and TSN is showing a Women's hockey blowout. I'm thinking, "It's the Olympics... how strange that there's nothing else going on right now". I know the 500m speed skating is coming up tonight (that's one of the oft-played fluff pieces... yeah we get it, Wortherspoon fell in 2002). So I look up the schedule online, and in actuality, the first run of the 500 metres is on right now! It's just that it's not the Canadians' turn yet.

Is that what we've come to? We have a multitude of channels, and we won't show an event live if a Canadian isn't involved. Once upon a time, I remember thinking the American coverage was terrible in 1996 because they never showed anyone but Americans, while our coverage was superior because we gave coverage to whole events... and that was when we only had one station showing coverage. But I guess that's what we, as Canadians, are told we want to be. I'm just waiting for the tape delayed for primetime only coverage that we'll surely be getting in a few Olympics from now.

CTV, you have a chance to show that you're just as good as CBC when it comes to Olympic coverage, but you're quickly blowing it.

And I miss the CBC Olympic theme song.