Will CTV Pass The Olympian Test?

For anyone watching from the comfort of their homes, it is the question of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

How will CTV deal with presenting the biggest sports event of our generation (at least) to the millions of viewers for whom they'll be the window to these Games of ice and snow?

Already, the cynics are out in force about that essential query.

(more on than in a bit).

Longtime Olympic watchers now doubt remember the last time CTV was front and centre at the five-ring circus. The network's coverage of Barcelona 1992 was widely panned and while the reviews were slightly better for Lillehammer 1994, I can still hear the widespread cheering that ensued when the CBC got back into the Games in Atlanta in 1996 (with TSN's help — and extra available airtime — it should be noted).

Flash forward to today and CTV is again the Canadian network of record at the Olympics. And not just any Olympics, but our Games. The first ones to be held on Canadian soil since Calgary 1988 (also a CTV production, if memory serves me well).

For a country used to seeing a certain standard from the CBC (which always set the bar high in that area), there was great apprehension about what CTV might give us at a time when we might care about the Olympics more than ever. And if you saw the MuchMusic style hot-tub schlock that was included as part of an "Olympic preview," that only increased your fears.
There has also been more than a fair amount of criticism with the way the network handled the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvilii in the hours preceding the opening ceremony.

Given that CTV seemingly can't help itself when it comes to celebrity worship and so-called "entertainment news," we'll have to grit our teeth at times — and be judicious about how much time we spend watching Olympic Morning, when the action hasn't really started in Vancouver.

The good news is, these really aren't solely a CTV Olympics. The broadcast consortium that is bringing us these Games happens to include TSN and Rogers Sportsnet, two networks that do sports for a living. And very well, it should be added.

Now this is very early, but we've noticed a distinct change for the good since the games (and Games) have truly begun. TSN is full-bore on ski jumping right now (a spectacular sight at any Olympics) and over on CTV, we've been treated to a bit of that action and some interesting features and scene-setters about events to come (and lots of James Duthie, which is never, ever a bad thing). In other words, we're watching the Olympic story as it was meant to be told.
The Olympics will surely seem like the Olympics later on tonight, when the venerable Brian Williams, the dean of Olympic TV coverage in Canada, takes his familiar prime-time anchor seat for the first time since Turin 2006 (when he worked from a Toronto studio, not on site).

So there is reason for hope, and plenty of it. Let's hope they give us plenty more of it over the next 15 days — and keep the hot tubbers and the like as far away as possible.