‘How football without announcers changed Canada forever’

Comment submitted to TV Barn:

You suggested that [football broadcasting without announcers] would be interesting. Well, it happened in Canada in 2005.

The CBC was going through a strike, but the bosses wanted to carry on with [CFL] broadcasts. Management manned the cameras, etc., but there was no commentary, just the natural crowd noise and the field announcer.

The broadcasts were almost universally panned. This situation resulted in worsening relations between the CFL and CBC, and the entire TV contract was given to TSN.

4 Comments

  • Dwight Williams says:

    Well, someone’s buying those DVDs at the Place d’Orléans CBCShop branch store in east Ottawa…

  • quorks and querks says:

    Ahh, this takes me back to the early days of the teamakers and the almighty lockout fiasco of ’05.

    Namely, the
    bearpit meetings

    That day, watching Stursberg actually defend the CFL sans-audio and George Smith with a marina cleaning grin on his face all the while, those locked in knew that they were on a rudderless ship.

    Look how far we’ve come! The only milestone since then is the confirmation that Ouimet is NOT Kathy Sprague.

    CFL is great w/no audio, Sophie is a funny entertaining show, we have never been at war with Eurasia. Sheesh.

  • Dwight Williams says:

    The reaction depends on the sport being covered, then?

  • me says:

    Panned, eh?

    When Rad-Can did this with hockey, they got just the opposite reaction. And ratings went up.

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