So the theme song is gone from Hockey Night in Canada. I’m ok with that. I really am. I know it’s the ‘second national anthem’, recognized coast to coast to coast since 1968 but ultimately it’s a song. It’s not Hockey Night in Canada and it’s not Hockey. CTV ended up buying the song, presumably just so the CBC couldn’t have it anymore and that’s fine. If that’s where CTV wants to spend their money.
According to InsidetheCBC.com executive director of Television Sports Scott Moore claims that the song was going for 2.5 – 3 million dollars.
““The owner’s demand of $2.5 to 3 million is well beyond—actually, three or four times as much as—what we consider to be a reasonable valuation,” said Scott Moore, executive director, Television Sports. “As a public broadcaster, it would have been irresponsible to have offered that amount.”
Mr. Moore is right. I can just hear the Conservatives and other CBC haters screaming bloody murder if the CBC had spent 3 million dollars on a jingle (no matter how famous or well liked).
This is not even the first of CBC’s problems with the song. In 2004 the song’s composer Dolores Claman sued the CBC over something to do with ring-tones and the song and seriously, the CBC just doesn’t need the grief. Personally, I’m amazed that with all of the brilliant musicians, songwriters and composers in this country that, what is, (nostalgia aside) a relatively generic little jingle should cause such a fuss. If the music had been used for a car commercial instead of Hockey Night in Canada everyone would have forgotten about it already and Hockey Night in Canada (the important part of the equation) isn’t going anywhere.
Personally I’m loooking forward to the contest where composers from across Canada will try their hand at writing the new song and the winner will net him or herself $100,000 plus royalties for years to come (and nationwide notoriety). From a Canadian perspective it’s better than Canadian Idol (sorry CTV), because rather than an elaborate, televised karaoke contest people who actually know how to write music, will be asked to write a song – a song about hockey and what could be more Canadian than that?