We Spent $1.3 Million to Televise The Winter Games.
The TV publicity that we received from the recent Winter Games did not come cheap. The cost for TSN to come to the city for the two weeks was just shy of 1 million dollars. To be fair, that mimics what Halifax paid to TSN when they hosted the Winter Games in that city.
The local Winter Games group had little say in the matter of TSN coming to the city because it is mandated by the Canada Games Council.
Canada Games TV on line , which was powered by Via Sport also received a goodly portion of that 1.3 million.
The most interesting cost of the Winter Games was the fact that Global TV was paid just under $40,000 dollars for their attendance at the Games. Stu Ballentyne says that money went to cover their expenses, and so while it appeared that Global was in the city trying to promote the events, it could not be said that it was for the benefit of all of the people in BC because it was not costing them a dime to be here.
Did we get the kind of benefit that we should have for 1.3 million dollars? That remains to be seen . Global’s Chris Gailus must have been making a tongue in cheek remark when he said this “mill town” needed some help, given that he was in the city on our dime .
I happen to think that quite apart from the national publicity that we received for the kind of friendly folks that were are , and the fact that 4500 volunteers came out to throw their support behind the effort speaks volumes about the city. If the Games did nothing more than bring the community together for a couple of weeks , that in itself would be a plus for the city and area.
Could we have bought an advertising campaign promoting the city that would have surpassed what we spent on televising the Games? We may never know.
I`m Meisner and that`s one man’s opinion.
Comments
We sure didn’t get much from TSN for the money…. 2 hours a day if we lucky…and some days even less.
Lets just say TSN saw us coming…
I question this TV deal, great for Global and TSN but it sucks for local TV – including SHAW
Figure more on the local news during the sportscast instead they were non related on the day reporting
, more bio report which was old filler news reporting! Shame on this style reporting
It makes sense as to why the global news tent was gone from the plaza after the first week!
During the closing ceremony there was no coverage!
Basically got the cheque and left town!
Like Ben said, this was mandated by the CGC! There were a lot of local and regional sponsors shut out of the event by CGC because of National sponsorship rights, and the folks in Winnipeg and Red Deer will find out the same way PG did. These National events are pretty much owned by others, and leased out for 18 days every 2 years without a lot of local control. That’s why they run so well! I still think it was good for PG, even the TV coverage!
Ha figured Global was here on our dime. Paid for the sports guy Double J to stay here for two weeks for the coverage they had during the sports cast on the news hour. Probably cost a good $10,000 alone out of the 40.
Tsn is owned by bell media and Disney . They both got the gold and silver .
They should have left it to CBC …. they’re free for the average joe to watch … and local media
Well, I never got to see much of it on TSN, mainly because we lived at the CN centre and Kin 1,2 during the games. It was great to see the people from around the country see our city. The communities of similar size was impressed with the facilities that we have.
How did TSN portray as?
Hopefully our city showed well.
I was disappointed to see how little was taped: only the Opening and Closing ceremonies.
I do not subscribe to any extra pay channels such as TSN2. Therefore, (except for the opening and closing ceremonies which I downloaded after the fact) I saw no real live coverage of the local Winter Games. I had a very bad cold/flu during the days of the Games and wasn’t going to attend any functions and perhaps pass it on. I paid already for the Games with increased city taxes so it really was very disrespectful not to have it (even taped) on a local station which is part of the basic HD cable package.
To put it in perspective, that’s about the same price as a year of IPG. I would argue that the coverage got us ten times more press and publicity than IPG ever does in a year.
I talked to one of my colleagues who went to PG to watch the games and he said he had a good time. He mentioned 5 things specifically:
1) The ancient forest.
2) Dog sledding.
3) The railway museum.
4) The rotten egg smell that people affectionately referred to as “the smell of money”.
5) The fact that it seemed like you needed to drive a 1 ton Ford to fit in.
That’s all that we saw was the opening and closing ceremonies and that was on the internet. What a shame the CBC would probably done a much better job. The publicity is so important and it got the big stick.
Cheers
Sure was a lot of money and hoopla for a field trip/sports day for some school kids. Oh right it never really was about the kids. I noticed they were the only ones not asking “what’s in it for me”.
I am really interested in the actual financial benefit to the businesses of Prince George. Especially the hotels and restaurants.
It appeared to me that the City of Prince George fed most of the athletes and coaches at the civic center for the entire 2 weeks.
Why doesn’t someone go door to door and talk to the restaurants in the city to see how they actually did compared to a regular two weeks?
Dougie’s Hot Dogs did well. So, did the other two vendors from out of town. Possibly at the expense of local vendors and local businesses who paid all the bills.
Plus, the Canada Winter Games organizers blocked off and reserved a huge number of rooms in the city and never cancelled them when the potential attendees never showed up. How about talking to the Treasure Cove and the Ramada?
We were warned, cautioned and alerted to the horrendous parking problems that would happen downtown. We were told that anyone coming downtown would need to park at Pine Center, CNC or Spruceland and take the bus downtown because there would be no parking.
Surprise! Parking was really never a problem, because everyone avoided coming downtown completely. It all backfired. There were less people coming downtown than what we usually experience on a regular weekly basis. (from a business perspective)
Most of the athletes staying downtown didn’t have cars.
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