In the spring of 1967, AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) was on strike against the then big three American networks that affected almost all programming; news, entertainment and sports, such as the commentator coverage of the Masters[1][2] on CBS.
Also on April 8, 1967, CBS was scheduled to broadcast the NHL game between the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens. However, the AFTRA strike forced cancellation of the telecast.[4] The strike itself ultimately ended two days later. Canadian unions said they would not cover the game because of the AFTRA strike if the American network used it. CBS said a rebroadcast of that past January's Super Bowl[5][6] football game between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs in Los Angeles would be substituted for the hockey game.
A strike of engineers and technicians[7] against ABC impacted the September 23, 1967Penn State/Navycollege football telecast. In support of the strikers, Chris Schenkel and Bud Wilkinson refused to work the game. Therefore, Chuck Howard performed play-by-play with the SIDs of the two schools (Jim Tarman and Budd Thalman) providing color commentary.
In 1970, the ITVcolour strike resulted in many of ITV's sporting events including World of Sport and the weekly regional football highlights being broadcast in black and white.
In 1972, Hockey Night in Canada moved all playoff coverage from CBC to CTV to avoid conflict with the lengthy NABETstrike[8] against the CBC. Eventually, MacLaren Advertising, in conjunction with Molson Breweries and Imperial Oil/Esso, who actually owned the rights to Hockey Night in Canada (not CBC) decided to give the playoff telecast rights to CTV. Initially, it was on a game by game basis in the quarterfinals (Game 1 of the Boston-Toronto series was seen on CFTO Toronto in full while other CTV affiliates, but not all joined the game in progress. Game 1 of the New York Rangers-Montreal series was seen only on CFCF Montreal while Game 4 not televised due to a lockout of technicians at the Montreal Forum), and then the full semifinals and Stanley Cup Finals. Because CTV did not have 100% penetration in Canada at this time, they asked CBC (who ultimately refused) to allow whatever one of their affiliates were the sole network in that market to show the playoffs. As a result, the 1972 Stanley Cup playoffs were not seen in some of the smaller Canadian markets unless said markets were close enough to the United States border to pick up the signal of a CBSaffiliate that carried Games, 1, 4, or 6 (Games 2, 3 and 5 were not nationally broadcast in the United States).
A CBS technicians strike[9][10] in 1972 disrupted coverage of numerous NFL games.[11] Some games were covered by local TV crews, while some were not seen at all. The scheduled commentators for CBS did not cross the picket lines and instead CBS had to scramble to substitute announcers. Billy Joe Patton and even the head of CBS Sports, Bill MacPhail, were among those that filled in.
According to the New York Times, the cut cables were discovered around noon. When CBS emergency crews (made up of supervisors) tried to bring other cables in from two trucks parked outside the stadium, a New York Citycop saw a striking CBS technician trying to pry loose a cable that was hooked up to one of the trucks. At this point, the cop attempted to arrest the technician, but two of the latter's cohorts got involved, with a "scuffle" then breaking out. The first technician was arrested for criminal tampering, while the other two got hauled in on a host of other charges. CBS presumably figured it would be impossible to avoid having it happen again (although the strikers reportedly only numbered 25), so they just canceled the broadcast.
Interestingly, the San Francisco-Green Bay game at Milwaukee[12] also had nine TV cables cut, but the picture was only out for eight minutes at the start of the second half. Finally, in the Los Angeles-Atlanta game, there were no replays because they had two less cameras in use because of the strike. That Sunday, CBS was also forced to preempt Face the Nation[13] because of the strike, which is notable because it came just two days before the Presidential election.
There was a NABET/NBC strike[14] in the spring of 1976 as was cited in Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad's backstage history book about Saturday Night Live.[15]
The 1977NABET (National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians) strike of ABC affected the crew for the 1977 Indianapolis 500[16] broadcast. The on-air talent remained the same, but a number of technical workers were replaced.
The 1979 Austrian Grand Prix went without a broadcast when the local cameramen for ORF, who was broadcasting went on strike. Since the local feed was also the world feed, a lot of people didn't get to see a race that day.
A number of events were not covered in the United Kingdom in August/September 1979 due to the fact that ITV held the UK rights to these events due to the 11 week ITV strike[17] among, these events were the Ebor Festival,[18]St Leger, and 1979 Ryder Cup.[19]
Due to a NABET strike lasting from June–November 1987,[20][21]NBC had management, supervisors and non-union workers filling technical roles on broadcasts out of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and Burbank.[22] Meanwhile, NBC's news and sports departments set up a situation where they had replacement sports workers doing the NFL's replacement games during its own labor dispute.
Around this same time period, there was an NBCGame of the Week at New York's Shea Stadium, where there was a lengthy loss of audio, as well as one or two video glitches. This was either during or just prior to the deadline for a strike by the crewmembers' union, and there was speculation that the 'mistakes' were deliberate.
In November 1997, during the 3rd Round of the Tour Championship, ABC employees staged a one-day boycott[23][24] due to an employee being disciplined for drawing an obscene cartoon of Disney chairman Michael Eisner. ABC showed final round coverage of the 1995 Tour Championship in the broadcast window.
From February 20 to March 27, 1999, Hockey Night in Canada telecasts were called off monitors at various sites across the United States due to a CBC technicians strike.[25] This included the Toronto Maple Leafs' first game at Air Canada Center,[26] which used a feed provided by ESPN, and was called by Bob Cole and Harry Neale from Washington, D.C. A similar strike occurred in 2001, impacting games between December 8, and December 22.
In 2002, there was a strike at SRC[27] which resulted in there being no commentators for the Saturday NHL broadcasts of La Soirée du hockey from March 23 through to the final Saturday of the regular season on April 13. The strike then carried over into the NHL playoffs, which meant their coverage of the first two rounds of the playoffs (Montreal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes) had no announcers. The strike was settled by the third round and the commentators returned to call the Eastern Conference final between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Hurricanes.
CBC[28] had to broadcast Canadian Football League games without commentators[29] from mid-August until (Canadian) Thanksgiving in 2005. They even had to forfeit some games to TSN. The lockout was set to end just after Thanksgiving, but commentators were allowed to come back a bit early to do the opening Saturday night of the NHL season (the one after the lockout) and the Thanksgiving Day Classic CFL games. Also because of that particular labor stoppage, CBC had to give up rights of the Women's Rogers Cup to TSN/CTV. CBC was supposed to air both semis and the final, but TSN took over the afternoon semi and CTV took over the final, using TSN's production. One of the last events that CBC showed before the stoppage was the World Athletics Championships.[30]Ron MacLean hosted it, and informed viewers of what was about to happen.
Related Research Articles
The NHL on CBS is the branding used for broadcasts of National Hockey League (NHL) games produced by CBS Sports and televised on CBS in the United States.
NHL on CTV is the name of a former television program that broadcast National Hockey League games on the CTV Television Network.
CFL on CTV is a presentation of Canadian Football League football airing on the CTV Television Network produced by Bell Media's The Sports Network. It was previously a standalone independently produced program on CTV from 1961 to 1986. CTV dropped coverage of the CFL after the 1986 season; and this coverage was replaced by TSN and the newly created Canadian Football Network.
Chris Cuthbert is a Canadian sportscaster. He currently serves as the lead play-by-play commentator with CBC Sports/Sportsnet for Hockey Night in Canada, and calls most national and regional games for the Toronto Maple Leafs on the network. Formerly, he worked for TSN, NBC, and CBC Sports in a multitude of roles. He and Glen Suitor were the lead broadcast team for the CFL on TSN from 2008 to 2019 before Cuthbert gave that lead play-by-play role to Rod Smith.
NHL on RKO General relates to a small, syndicated network of stations owned by RKO General which broadcast National Hockey League games.
The National Hockey League has never fared as well on American television in comparison to the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, or the National Football League, although that has begun to change, with NBC's broadcasts of the final games of the 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013 Stanley Cup Finals scoring some of the best ratings ever enjoyed by the sport on American television.
The following is a list of commentators to be featured in CBC Television's Olympic Games coverage.
The National Hockey League (NHL) is shown on national television in the United States and Canada. With 25 teams in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, the NHL is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada that maintains separate national broadcasters in each country, each producing separate telecasts of a slate of regular season games, playoff games, and the Stanley Cup Finals.
From 1965 through 1975, in addition to the Saturday night game on CBC, Hockey Night in Canada also produced and broadcast a Wednesday night game on CTV, CBC's privately owned competitor; beginning in the 1975–76 NHL season, these midweek games would begin to be broadcast by local stations.
From 1965 through 1975, in addition to the Saturday night game on CBC, Hockey Night in Canada also produced and broadcast a Wednesday night game on CTV, CBC's privately owned competitor; beginning in the 1975–76 NHL season, these midweek games began to broadcast by local stations. In 1970–71, the Vancouver Canucks joined the NHL, meaning that there were now three possible venues for an HNIC telecast.
During the 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons, four more Canadian teams, the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, and Calgary Flames, joined the NHL. The Oilers and Flames were featured frequently as the two teams were contenders the 1980s; in contrast, as the Nordiques were owned by Carling-O'Keefe, a rival to the show's sponsor Molson and whose English-speaking fanbase was very small, the Nords were rarely broadcast, and never from Quebec City during the regular-season.
After Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, CBC began showing occasional double-headers when Canadian teams visited Los Angeles to showcase the sport's most popular player. These games were often joined in progress, as the regular start time for Hockey Night in Canada was still 8 p.m. Eastern Time and the Kings home games began at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Beginning in the 1995 season, weekly double-headers became permanent, with games starting at 7:30 Eastern and 7:30 Pacific, respectively. In 1998, the start times were moved ahead to 7 p.m. ET and PT.
Since 2000, the CBC has aired an annual special Hockey Day in Canada broadcast to celebrate the game in Canada. The broadcast includes hockey-related features all afternoon, leading up to a tripleheader of NHL action featuring the seven Canadian teams. One exception was the 2008 edition that featured four games including two American teams along with the six Canadian teams; this was due to the NHL's schedule format at the time, as there was no inter-conference games between Canadian teams. Lead commentators, Don Cherry and Ron MacLean broadcast from a remote area. The broadcast includes live broadcast segments from smaller communities right across the country and features panel discussions on issues facing "Canada's game" at both the minor and pro levels. The day is usually in mid-February, but was broadcast in early January in 2002 and 2006 due to the 2002 Winter Olympics and 2006 Winter Olympics, respectively; the 2007 event was also held in January, though no sporting events key to Canada were scheduled.
On April 19, 2011, after ESPN, Turner Sports, and Fox Sports placed bids, NBC Sports announced it had reached a ten-year extension to its U.S. television contract with the NHL worth nearly $2 billion over the tenure of the contract. The contract would cover games on both NBC and sister cable channel Versus, which became part of the NBC Sports family as the result of Versus parent Comcast's controlling purchase of NBC Universal earlier in 2011.
The National Hockey League (NHL) is shown on national television in the United States and Canada. With 25 teams in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, the NHL is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada that maintains separate national broadcasters in each country, each producing separate telecasts of a slate of regular season games, playoff games, and the Stanley Cup Finals.
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