Fred's, (Used to be Barb's), Board

It appears that we may be deprived of our usual access to CBC's coverage of ISU skating. As I had heard during last season, their contract with the ISU expired, and it appears that they have not yet negotiated a new one

Using their tweet about Battle of the Blades as a "springboard" on Twitter, I said:

Can't wait for the return of Battle of the Blades!

Now if CBC would just confirm that they will be broadcasting International Figure Skating competitions this year, especially with Worlds in Montreal in March!!

Their reply:

At this time,CBC does not own the broadcast rights to the ISU Figure Skating season.We will continue to follow the stories of Canada's athletes through our editorial and social platforms and should we be successful in reacquiring the rights,we will ensure everyone is made aware.

Not very encouraging to say the least. And CTV or TSN will show it only on their prime channels I am sure drat!

It doesn't sound like there is a contract between the ISU and anyone for the Canadian broadcast rights, at least not yet.

If there is no rights holder for Canada, we should be able to access the ISU feed directly but any TV coverage might be limited to what the US rights-holder (NBC) puts on their main channel

I’ve just emailed CBC too.
If you’d like to contact them about coverage, I found it at:
cbchelp.cbc.ca

Please let us know if you get a reply and what they say, Judy!

I understand that the ISU has a new agency that is doing the negotiating with various countries regarding broadcast rights and I wonder if that may explain why there is no contract yet. If so, perhaps there is still some hope....

Anyone heard anything further?

Judy wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 12:49 pm Anyone heard anything further?

Nothing further yet. There is nothing resembling a broadcast schedule on the CBC Figure Skating page. They do have the following:

Calendar
This table shows which competition takes place in what month.
December 4 - 7 - GPF Italy, Turin
January 19 - 25 - ECh Austria, Graz
February 3 - 8 - FCCh Korea, Seoul
March 15 - 21 - WCh Canada, Montreal

They don't even spell out what the abbreviations stand for, like the European Champions, Four Continents Championships, World Championships.

NBC Sports has now released their TV schedule for figure skating coverage - anything that is shown as on NBC should be accessible to those in Canada who have access to one or more NBC TV stations.

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/10/ ... -schedule/

For the upcoming Grand Prix series this means:
Oct. 20 - Skate America - 12 – 1 p.m. NBC
Oct. 26 - Skate America - 4:30 – 6 p.m. NBC
Oct. 27 - Skate Canada - 4:30 – 6 p.m. NBC
Nov. 3 - Grand Prix France -4 – 6 p.m. NBC
Nov. 10 - Grand Prix China -12 – 1:30 p.m. NBC
Nov. 17 - Grand Prix Russia - 12 – 1:30 p.m. NBC
Nov. 24 - Grand Prix Japan - 4 – 6 p.m. NBC

Dec. 22 - Grand Prix Final - 4 – 6 p.m. NBC

Good grief, that's crazy!! I hope we hear soon. I mean these competitions are only a couple of weeks away.

It appears that, for those countries where there is no signed contract with a broadcaster, the ISU will be making their competitions available on YouTube:
https://www.isu.org/isu-news/news/145-n ... teParam=15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5a-Kvwte20

This should apply to Canada.... however, there is an indication on their "where to watch" page today that we could be geoblocked as they believe CBC is streaming Skate America.
See: https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/news ... teParam=15

A source within CBC reached by phone this morning indicated

that a deal wasn't going to be finalized until the new year.

When told of the ISU's posting, they were "going to look into it".

Stay tuned (somewhere)....

Today became a day of discovery! Hopefully, we now know what will be happening this season (or most of it).

First, after announcing their YouTube channel yesterday, the ISU posted their "where to watch" page about Skate America streaming and indicated that it would be CBC.

CBC still had nothing on their schedule page but said they were "looking into it" according to what someone was told by phone.

Then, as posted in the Skate America thread, CBC Sports announced on Twitter that there would be streaming plus a YouTube show on Sunday with Dylan and Asher. There was nothing on their schedule or as a news story on their website.

I kept asking questions, via Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Finally, at 4 p.m. this afternoon Scott Russell of CBC Sports did a pre-planned Facebook Live event for Skate Ontario with PJ Kwong. I seized the opportunity and submitted a direct question:

Canadian fans want to know "what's up" with CBC Sports coverage of ISU skating, beginning with the GP events & particularly Skate America this weekend!

PJ asked my question and Scott said that it was a good question and that it had "just been announced today" that CBC Sports will be streaming the GP series event (except Skate Canada) and would be broadcasting Worlds on TV (plus streaming). He said that the ISU insisted on a TV broadcasting contract for both figure skating and speed skating and that the price was exorbitant so this was the agreement they had arrived at.

PJ mentioned that the Skate Ontario Octoberfest events in the "blue rink" would be also streamed by CBC Sports, on a separate streaming channel, beginning tomorrow.

I keep checking but there is nothing yet in the streaming schedule for Skate America on Friday and Saturday but it certainly seems that it will appear!

By the way, the full Facebook live is supposed to be put up on the Skate Ontario YouTube channel but is not there yet: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLb3Ln ... rEGFLtkGAg