Questions about the Olympics
First, if we’re supposed to feel all warm and patriotic when Canadian athletes win medals at the Olympics, are we supposed to feel inadequate and useless when they come 11th. Or 43rd?
Second, how should we read this message on the CBC website:
Due to International Olympic Committee (IOC) restrictions regarding the online transmission of Olympic Games coverage, CBC.ca is prohibited from streaming any live or on-demand audio/video files that may include protected Olympic material.
Doesn’t this say, in effect, “all that superfluous local content that we play most of the time is less important than allowing the sporty people to watch divers trying to hit the water at the same time?”
I don’t mean to suggest that the CBC shouldn’t broadcast the Olympics — certainly they are of interest. But these “restrictions” about “protected Olympic material” mean that the thousands of people who use CBC’s streaming audio on the web are left in silence.
The CBC, I think, has a made a deal with the devil.