Archive for June 13th, 2008
‘Hockey Night’ Theme Changes Owners… (Sigh)
There is something incredibly wrong about having the Hockey Night in Canada theme on TSN and RDS.
Even Colbert I could handle. But this? This is just wrong.
CBC has lost more than a good theme song this time round; they’ve lost the plot, the nation’s trust, their respect, and whatever little public goodwill toward the ‘public’ broadcaster that was left.
See previous NowPublic coverage on this story here, here, and here.
The National Hockey League season may be over, but one of the top stories in the Canadian TV biz in recent days has been a classic hockey soap opera.
The theme song to “Hockey Night in Canada,” pubcaster CBC’s flagship Saturday night hockey show, is changing owners after four decades.
The ditty has been bought by CBC’s archrival, commercial broadcaster CTV, which has taken all rights in perpetuity to the hockey theme song written in 1968 by Canadian Dolores Claman.
CBC had been unable to come to an agreement with Claman and her publisher, Copyright Music & Visuals, over payment for use of the song. So the pubcaster announced it would hold a contest to find a new theme song.
That left execs at CTV, notably CEO Ivan Fecan and sports president Rick Brace, free to snap up the song.
It’s a major coup for CTV because it owns two sports channels, TSN in English and RDS in French, and NHL hockey is a big part of the schedule on both.
The “Hockey Night in Canada” theme will become the signature tune for hockey broadcasts on both channels.
The timing couldn’t be better for CTV because it just inked a six-year deal with the NHL, snaring rights to 70 regular-season games per year, and, for the first time, each game will feature at least one Canadian team. (Games with Canadian teams garner much better ratings than matchups with two American NHL teams.)
“We viewed the theme not just as the ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ theme but as a hockey theme, and to be associated with our second national anthem is huge,” Brace says.
CTV also has rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics, and Brace says the theme music will be used for the hockey games at the 2010 games.
Disappointed CBC execs have been telling anyone who will listen that Claman was asking for too much money, reportedly some $2.5 million, for use of the song. And they argue that viewers don’t tune in to a show for its theme music.
That’s likely true, but this song does occupy a unique place in Canadian culture. It is the country’s most famous piece of music this side of “Oh Canada,” and the media has been full of outraged comments from hockey fans upset that the number will no longer open the broadcast that has been Canada’s main hockey TV showcase since NHL games first appeared on the smallscreen in the early 1950s.
Brace, however, is happy to have the theme song that’s so near and dear to the hearts of Canadians.
“It brings back all kinds of memories of watching hockey when I was a kid,” he says.
Tags: Canada | Sports | Hockey | Montreal | National | television | Season | Night | song | CTV | league | TSN | changes | Owners | theme | culturite | rds
Oxford University, Meet Prof. Kevin Spacey
As fun as it would have been to have Jean-Luc Picard as a prof, it will be way cooler to have Keyser Söze skill up your acting knowledges at Oxford, no?
Kevin Spacey is about to get schooled.
The Oscar-winning actor has accepted a position as visiting theater professor at Oxford University, succeeding Patrick Stewart when the prestigious institution’s new academic term kicks off in October.
As part of his yearlong tenure as the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theater at Oxford’s St. Catherine’s College, Spacey will be required to give at least one lecture, one workshop or one seminar per term.
Tags: Culture | university | theatre | actor | Professor | class | Oxford | Patrick Stewart | acting | Kevin Spacey | culturite
Radiohead Begins Carbon Neutral World Tour
Of the many reasons to love Radiohead, perhaps the most important is that they simply lead by example: creatively, musically, ethically, socially, comunally, digitally and, now, environmentally.
After Primavera Sound Festival got people dancing under the largest urban solar panel, the Barcelonians were lucky enough to attend the even greener festival Daydream (organised by Sinnamon), a tribute to no other than the band Radiohead. Barcelona was one of the cities Radiohead chose to visit with their ‘Carbon Neutral World Tour’. A fantastic concert visualised brilliantly with an amazing light show. And there is much more to the pretty lights than just dancing colours.
Radiohead’s environmental theme is facilitated by energy-saving LED stage lighting designed by i-Pix, the UK-based creators of innovative theater and stage lighting systems, who use Lamina’s TitanTurbo LED light engine modules. The project started around October last year when i-Pix president and chief engineer, Chris Ewington, visited Lamina to view a demonstration of their new narrow optic. The project went quickly from prototype to full production once Watson and Radiohead production manager Richard Young and lighting crew chief Andy Beller viewed the first prototype with the new Lamina narrow optic. “From our experience, most shows spend months in discussion and a maximum of six weeks in prep, so this timescale did not come as a surprise” stated Ewington. “The design period was condensed from six months to four days, the components were produced in two weeks, and the units built over two weeks.”
Lamina is the only energy-efficient lighting company to have its entire portfolio of LED lighting products individually certified for CO2 emission avoidance. The New Jersey-based lighting company labels its products with a “green tag” which highlights their energy efficiency as compared to their traditional equivalents in the form of the amount of carbon dioxide offset. Each Lamina TitanTurbo LED has been certified to avoid over 3 tons of C02 emissions into the earth’s atmosphere.
Tags: Culture | Music | New Jersey | Concert | Show | light | festival | energy | Green | World | UK | Radiohead | Rock | band | environmental | solar | carbon | Panel | barcelona | Tour | daydream | pop | Neutral | primavera | culturite | i-Pix | TitanTurbo | Lamina
NBC Journalist Tim Russert Dies at 58
NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and long-time host of Meet the Press, Tim Russert has died of a heart attack at the age of 58.
Tim Russert, NBC journalist and political heavyweight host of “Meet the Press,” has died after collapsing at NBC’s Washington news bureau, a source said. He was 58 years old.
Russert, who rose from the inside world of politics where he was former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s press secretary and one-time chief of staff to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was able to successfully cross over to political journalism and rise to become one of its leading lights.
In his role as host of the seminal Sunday morning political program “Meet the Press” – which he took over in 1991 – he became renowned for his hard-nosed interviews where he frequently cornered some of Washington’s cagiest political figures with tough questions.
Russert joined NBC News in 1984. In April 1985, he supervised the live broadcasts of the Today program from Rome, negotiating and arranging an appearance by Pope John Paul II – a first for American television. In 1986 and 1987 Russert led NBC News weeklong broadcasts from South America, Australia and China.
In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Additional reporting:
NBC interrupted its regular programming to announce Russert’s death, and in the ensuing moments, familiar faces such as Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell and Brian Williams took turns mourning his loss.
Williams called him “aggressively unfancy.”
Russert, of Buffalo, N.Y., took the helm of the Sunday news show in December 1991 and turned it into the nation’s most widely watched program of its type. His signature trait there was an unrelenting style of questioning that made some politicians reluctant to appear, yet confident that they could claim extra credibility if they survived his grilling intact.
Tags: Culture | journalist | Media | MSNBC | news | United States | attack | Anchor | NBC | heart | tim | DIES | Russert | culturite
Thousands Flee Floods Across U.S. Midwest
What a week it has been for Americans living in the midwest. Thousands of people have been evacuated, or forced to flee their homes, across Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas and Michigan due to widespread flooding and brutal storms.
Iowa’s Gov. Chet Culver has estimated it could cost his state billions of dollars to repair the damage.
Officials in Des Moines, the state of Iowa’s capital and largest city, issued voluntary evacuation orders Friday to people living downtown and near levees along the banks of the cresting Des Moines River.
Days of heavy rain across the U.S. Midwest have swollen rivers in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas and Michigan. Thousands have already fled their homes before the surging flood waters.
The Des Moines River was just centimetres below the tops of levees, officials said, while urging downtown businesses to shut and people living in flood-prone areas to move to higher ground.
Severe weather has plagued the state all this week.
A tornado struck a boy scout camp in central Iowa Wednesday, killing four people and forcing dozens to flee for their lives.
On Thursday, the Cedar River in eastern Iowa poured over its banks. forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 homes, causing a railroad bridge to collapse and leaving cars under water on downtown streets.
Officials estimated that 100 blocks were under water in the town of Cedar Rapids, where several days of sandbagging work could not hold back the rain-swollen river. Rescuers used boats to reach many stranded residents, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water.
“We’re just kind of at God’s mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start,” Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said.
Overflowing
rivers in Iowa and other Midwest states forced evacuations and
disrupted the region’s economy on Friday with fears of worse to come
from fragile levees and more rain.
A Cedar Rapids hospital was flooded and evacuated its patients after
a levee break on the Cedar River turned the downtown area into a
shallow lake. Thousands were forced to leave their homes in the worst
Midwest flooding in 15 years.
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said the damage to his state could cost billions of dollars.
Tags: Environment | Weather | Michigan | Wisconsin | Minnesota | Iowa | Kansas | Flood | Water | Des Moines | evacuation | levees | Midwest | EVACUATE | cedar rapids
R. Kelly Found Not Guilt of Child Pornography
Record Label Sues a Couple of Stone Temple Pilots
Classic major label strategy: hold onto your artists until the very bitter end. And, even then, don’t let go: wring the musical blood from the stone carcass of their formerly great career. Brilliant strategy.
Warner Music Group Corp’s Atlantic Records label on Thursday sued two members of the alternative rock band Stone Temple Pilots for trying to end their recording contract early.
The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan claims lead singer Scott Weiland and drummer Eric Kretz have threatened to stop performing under their contract and have indicated they would like to end the agreement unless Atlantic makes significant changes.
The record company said in the suit that while Stone Temple Pilots have already delivered six albums, it wants the group to record a seventh album and deliver up to two more albums if the record label decides they want them.
Tags: New York | Culture | Temple | Manhattan | lawsuit | atlantic | Rock | band | record | stone | scott | Singer | album | PILOTS | eric | drummer | songs | sues | label | Kretz | weiland | stp
