March 1: Winter Olympics media meltdown

Who’s who of Canadian Music close out Games [Globe and Mail]: Just when it seemed the 2010 Winter Olympics would reach its denouement in the style of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, with Neil Young strumming “Long May You Run,” came a medley from the Hell Plaza HMV: Michael Bublé, Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette, Simple Plan, Hedley, k-os and the winner of the 2003 edition of the Star Académie reality show, Marie-Mai. “Wow. If I just arrived on Earth now, I’d believe that sports were better than music,” tweeted Steven Page. While this lineup was helping disperse the BC Place crowd, NBC mercifully switched to the premiere of The Marriage Ref, leaving Canadians to deal with their own domestic version of Guantanamo Bay-style torture. Not all of the spectacle will be lost to history, though: the Giant Inflatable Beaver now has a fan page on Facebook.

Canadian Broadcast Consortium wins with Canadians [press release]: Delvinia Data Collection releases an online poll of 1,000 Canadians, concluding 72.5 per cent of them felt that TV coverage of the Vancouver Olympics was “executed very well” — despite criticism of CTV for its “hot tub programming and in-your-face patriotism.”

In the centre of everything [Gord Martineau, Broadcast Dialogue]: The surviving anchor of CityNews At Six divulges his role in helping new Citytv owner Ted Rogers relocate to the former Olympic Spirit building at Yonge-Dundas Square a few months before his passing — Martineau had a friend who owns a business in the area, and was tipped off to the fact that Google were on the verge of buying the building, and leasing out what they didn’t need. While there was some talk of moving Citytv further down the same road — somewhere around the Drake Hotel — after CTV started the process of evicting them from 299 Queen Street West, it was Martineau who convinced Ted to move elsewhere: “We have to take it to the next level,” he recalls saying. “Do something extraordinary … make a really bold statement that shows we are on the leading edge of what’s next.” And last night, when the Team Canada hockey victory erupted in said square just before 6 p.m., the station aired no live pictures — having cancelled weekend newscasts in January.

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