Fiktiv Canada - Bell Media - TSN

The Sports Network (TSN) is a Canadian English language sports specialty channel. Established by the Labatt Brewing Company in 1984 as part of the first group of Canadian specialty cable channels, since 2001, TSN has been majority-owned by communications conglomerate BCE Inc. (presently through its broadcasting subsidiary Bell Media) with a minority stake held by ESPN Inc. via a 20% share in the Bell Media subsidiary CTV Specialty Television. TSN is the largest specialty channel in Canada in terms of gross revenue, with a total of $400.4 million in revenue in 2013.

TSN's networks focus on sports-related programming, including live and recorded event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming. TSN was the first national cable broadcaster of the National Hockey League in Canada. Its stint has been interrupted twice by rival network Sportsnet, most recently as of the 2014–15 season under an exclusive 12-year rights deal. TSN holds regional television rights to four of the NHL's seven Canadian franchises.

As of 2015, major programming rights held by TSN include exclusive coverage of the Canadian Football League and Curling Canada's national championships, coverage of the NBA and the Toronto Raptors, coverage of Major League Soccer and exclusive rights to Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC, along with Canadian rights to the tournaments of FIFA (soccer) and the IIHF (ice hockey), the NFL (American Football) (shared with sister network CTV), Formula One, NASCAR, the Premier League (split with Sportsnet), the UEFA Champions League, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, among others. TSN also receives a large amount of programming through its minority partner, ESPN.

The TSN licence currently comprises five 24-hour programming services; from its launch until 2006, TSN operated as a single, national service. In 2006, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that TSN could operate multiple feeds with a limited amount of alternative national programming—this was followed by the launch of TSN2—a second 24-hour network under the TSN licence that was legally considered a west coast feed of TSN. As of 2010, TSN has been subject to deregulated Category C licensing by the CRTC, which allows multiple feeds to be operated under the TSN licence with no restrictions on alternate programming; TSN used this new ability to operate an autonomous TSN2, along with part-time feeds for regional NHL coverage.

On August 25, 2014, the primary TSN service was re-structured into four 24-hour feeds—TSN1, TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5—with each designated as the primary TSN network for each region of Canada. TSN now essentially operates as a group of regional sports networks similarly to Sportsnet, alongside the national TSN2; the four channels air some common programming and simulcast major events, but are capable of airing programming autonomously—including alternative national events and studio shows, supplemental coverage of larger events, and regional programming (such as NHL games; subject to blackout outside of the respective team's market).

Licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on April 2, 1984, as Action Canada Sports Network, the channel was launched by the Labatt Brewing Company on September 1 of the same year as The Sports Network, or TSN. The network was founded under the leadership of Gordon Craig, a former employee of CBC Sports; alongside coverage of the co-owned Toronto Blue Jays, TSN also reached a deal with ESPN (itself only 5 years old) shortly before launch to provide additional programs. Although reaching around 400,000 subscribers, TSN's early years were hindered by its initial status as a premium service, bundled in a high-cost package with movie channels such as First Choice and Superchannel, alongside competition with free-to-air sports broadcasts by CBC Television among others.

To improve the prominence of the network, TSN sought to obtain the national cable rights to the National Hockey League—rights that, according to the league, were not sold under the current arrangement with CBC. However, the task was complicated by claims by CBC that it owned the cable rights to the NHL, along with the involvement of competing beer company Molson in Canadian NHL rights at the time. With the help of a Molson employee who was a friend of Gordon, a deal was reached between TSN, Molson, and the NHL to allow the network to broadcast games on cable.

By December 1987, TSN had reached one million subscribers, but the network's staff sought wider distribution for the channel as part of basic cable service; the CRTC approved the network's request for permission to allow TSN to be carried as part of a basic cable lineup. Mike Day, producer of TSN's daily sports news program SportsDesk lamented about the shift to basic cable and the larger audience it would bring, commenting that "one night you're doing a news show that potentially has an audience of one million people, and the next day the potential is five million people."

In 1991, TSN acquired rights to the IIHF World U20 Championship, otherwise known as the "World Juniors", which were previously broadcast by CBC. TSN's coverage, along with the recent "Punch-up in Piestany" incident and a strong performance by Canada at the tournament in the mid-1990s, helped to significantly heighten the profile of the tournament in the country (even more so than in other participating countries), to the point that it is, alongside U.S. college football bowl games, regarded as a traditional sporting event of the holiday season in Canada.

Due to CRTC regulations on the foreign ownership of broadcasters, Labatt was forced to sell TSN and RDS upon its acquisition by Interbrew in 1995. Labatt's broadcasting assets were sold to a privately held consortium named NetStar Communications, the investors of which included a number of Canadian firms as well as ESPN Inc., which held an interest of about 30 percent. The same CRTC regulations prevented ESPN from establishing its own separate Canadian sports network outright, so acquiring a minority stake in TSN became ESPN's alternative plan to get into the Canadian market. The Sports Network launched its website TSN.ca on October 1, 1995.

In 1997, the CRTC began permitting TSN to offer an "alternate feed", which could be used to provide a regional opt-out of the main TSN service for programming that must be blacked out in the rest of the country. Alternate programming could make up a maximum of 10% of the TSN schedule—an average of 2.4 hours a day.

In 2000, after ESPN blocked two attempts by the Canadian partners to sell NetStar to Canwest, CTV Inc. acquired the Canadian partners' shares. CTV Inc. was acquired by Bell Canada and The Woodbridge Company (publisher of The Globe and Mail newspaper) as part of the joint venture Bell Globemedia in 2001. As a result of its purchase of TSN, CTV would be forced to sell its regional sports network CTV Sportsnet, eventually selling it to minority shareholder Rogers Media. Following the acquisition, TSN would move its operations to CTV's Agincourt complex. However, Sportsnet would not move from Agincourt until 2008 (when it moved to the Rogers Building in Downtown Toronto), which led to the now-competing networks sharing the same building as their headquarters. This oddity would become an inside joke between personalities on both networks, who commonly referred to jumping between the two networks as "crossing the parking lot."

Following the sale, TSN began to closer align its on-air imaging with that of ESPN; the most prominent effect of these changes came with the re-branding of TSN's flagship sports news program SportsDesk as SportsCentre—a Canadian version (in both format and spelling) of ESPN's SportsCenter. The CRTC, however, objected to plans to rename TSN as "ESPN Canada", citing concerns that it would sound more like the channel was ESPN's Canadian affiliate, and that ESPN had de facto majority control.

TSN also launched a number of digital specialty channels in 2001; including a local version of ESPN Classic, the NHL Network— a network devoted to ice hockey and the National Hockey League, and WTSN—a channel dedicated to women's sports. On August 15, 2003, TSN became one of the first two specialty television services in Canada (the other being fellow Bell property Discovery Channel) to be available in high definition. TSN's first live HD broadcast was of a Canadian Football League game between the Montreal Alouettes and Hamilton Tiger-Cats—it was to occur on the same day, but was delayed to August 16 due to a major blackout which occurred the day prior.

Beginning in 2006, the CRTC officially allowed TSN to operate national secondary digital feeds with limited amounts of alternative programming. Following this development, TSN began to use such a feed to broadcast additional programming that could not be aired on TSN due to scheduling conflicts or other events. On August 29, 2008, the feed evolved into a new 24-hour channel, similar to ESPN2, known as TSN2. Upon its launch, TSN2 was legally considered a west coast timeshift feed of TSN, although soon after TSN2 was launched, the CRTC announced a proposal to remove genre exclusivity protections for "mainstream sports" and "national news" channels in the near future. As a byproduct of the decision, TSN would be allowed to use streamlined conditions of licence (legally referred to as a Category C license as of September 2011), which state that the service may offer "multiple feeds", without any restrictions on alternate programming. TSN was officially permitted to use these streamlined conditions of licence on February 1, 2010.

On September 10, 2010, Bell Canada announced plans to re-acquire 100% of CTVglobemedia's broadcasting arm, including its majority control of TSN. Under the deal, Woodbridge Company Limited, Torstar, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan would together receive $1.3 billion in either cash or equity in BCE, while BCE would also assume $1.7 billion in debt (BCE's existing equity interest is $200 million, for a total transaction value of $3.2 billion). Woodbridge has since simultaneously regained majority control of The Globe and Mail, with Bell retaining a 15% interest in December 2010. The deal closed on April 1, 2011, after the CRTC approved the sale on March 7, 2011 – the new company became known as Bell Media.

After a longstanding speculation about TSN's interest in launching its own TSN-branded radio network (similarly to its U.S. counterpart), TSN entered radio broadcasting with the launch of the first TSN Radio station, a relaunch of AM station CHUM in Toronto on April 13, 2011. Bell Media's Bell Media Radio division already operated several sports radio stations elsewhere in Canada (most of which were branded as The Team, a name introduced by previous owner CHUM Limited in its own failed attempt at establishing a national sports radio network), it was reported that Bell could theoretically relaunch these other stations under the TSN Radio brand in the future.

Also in 2011, TSN acquired broadcast rights to the returning Winnipeg Jets. TSN would establish another part-time feed, TSN Jets, to broadcast the games. Additionally, co-owned CFRW would also gain radio rights to the new Jets. CFRW, along with Montreal station CKGM, also migrated to the TSN Radio brand on October 5, 2011. Additionally, Bell would also launch TSN Mobile TV, streaming versions of TSN and TSN2 offered through Bell Mobility's Mobile TV services.

On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced that it would sell its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to two major telecommunications companies; Bell Canada (TSN's main parent company) and Rogers Communications (owners of the competing Sportsnet chain of sports channels) with a 37.5% share each (Larry Tanenbaum increased his ownership to a quarter of the company as well), in a deal expected to be valued at around $1.32 billion in total. The deal was completed in summer 2012, following the approval of Canada's Competition Bureau, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (with regards to MLSE's television channels), as well as the leagues for each of MLSE's main sports franchises. The deal was expected to have a major impact on future broadcast rights for MLSE's teams, including the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, as their ownership of the teams will offer enhanced coverage for the team through new platforms such as mobile television.

In March 2014, TSN launched its TV Everywhere service TSN Go, allowing subscribers to TSN on participating service providers to stream TSN networks online or through a mobile app. On launch, TSN Go was available exclusively to Bell TV and Rogers Cable subscribers. It has since been expanded to other providers, such as Shaw.

Following the announcement of Bell and Rogers' acquisition of MLSE, concerns were again raised by critics, speculating that Bell Media could attempt to acquire full rights to the NHL after CBC's current contract with the league expires in the 2013–14 season – using their ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL's highest valued franchise, as an impetus for such a coup. Concerns were also raised that such an arrangement could prevent wireless service providers other than Bell and Rogers from accessing its content; the CRTC had ruled in favour of Telus in a decision requiring Bell and other media companies to allow other competing wireless providers access to its content, and not exclusively tie it to their own service (as they had attempted to do with TSN Mobile TV). However, in November 2013, Rogers Communications announced that it had reached a 12-year deal to become the sole national television rightsholder of the NHL, beginning in the 2014-15 season.

Critics considered Rogers' move to be a major blow against Bell and TSN, showing concerns for how the network could sustain itself without what is considered a key property in Canadian sports broadcasting. However, they also acknowledged the network's continuing rights to IIHF hockey tournaments (including the popular World Junior Hockey Championships), the Canadian Football League (who renewed their contract with TSN without allowing any outside bidders in 2013 and whose current contract lasts through 2018), and TSN's growing regional NHL rights portfolio, including the Maple Leafs—which would, beginning in the same season, air 26 games on TSN per season. In a series of Twitter posts by TSN personality Bob McKenzie, he explained that even with the loss of national NHL rights, TSN's goal was to remain "THE source for all things hockey" through its analysis programs and regional coverage, and that this was not the first time that TSN had lost its cable rights to the NHL (having lost them to CTV Sportsnet for a period upon its launch in 1998).

On May 6, 2014, TSN announced that it would launch three new channels—TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5, in September 2014 to coincide with the network's 30th anniversary. TSN president Stewart Johnston described the expansion as an "important evolution" for the network, as it would allow TSN to make more efficient use of its portfolio of sports properties: the network promoted that these new channels would allow TSN to broadcast a larger amount of ESPN content and live events, particularly including expanded coverage of major events (such as Grand Slam tennis, curling tournaments, and the NCAA basketball tournament) with multiple games occurring simultaneously. Although the expansion was discussed by TSN staff as early as 2012, critics considered the loss of NHL rights to Rogers (which had recently launched its seventh Sportsnet-branded television service with its acquisition of The Score, now Sportsnet 360) to be a catalyst for the move, as TSN attempts to defend its position as the largest specialty television service in Canada in terms of total revenue.

The launch date of these new channels were pushed up to August 25, 2014, in order to allow multi-court coverage of the 2014 US Open tennis tournament, which began the same day. TSN also announced that it would use these new channels to house regional NHL games beginning in the 2014-15 season, featuring the Jets, Maple Leafs, and Ottawa Senators.

On January 13, 2016, TSN announced that it would present its first telecast in 4K ultra high-definition—a Toronto Raptors basketball game—on January 20, 2016. It will be followed by a slate of regional NHL games and other Raptors games in the format.

On June 7, 2018, TSN announced that it would offer its channels as part of an over-the-top subscription service branded as "TSN Direct", competing with Sportsnet's similar Sportsnet Now subscription.

As is permitted for all Category C sports services, the TSN licence is permitted to have multiple channels. However, unlike premium services like The Movie Network, subscribers receiving one TSN channel are not necessarily automatically entitled to receive all additional channels, and in many cases they are (or previously were) only available by paying a separate charge to a service provider. For example, until 2013, Rogers Cable customers were required to subscribe to the HD Specialty Pack add-on in order to receive TSN HD (whereas most other HD simulcast channels were provided at no additional charge). On many providers including Rogers, TSN1, 3, 4 and 5 are included in a single package, but TSN2 is still provided only as part of a separate higher-tier package.

Channels:
TSN - Originally established as the primary, national TSN service since its launch, on August 25, 2014, this feed was renamed TSN1 and became the primary TSN feed for viewers in British Columbia, Alberta and Yukon.

On August 15, 2003, TSN launched a high definition simulcast, branded as TSN HD, airing widescreen and high-definition feeds of programming when available. As virtually TSN's entire schedule is now broadcast in HD, the separate branding was dropped from on-air usage in 2013, and the HD feed is now letterboxed for standard definition viewers. All of the other TSN channels below have had HD simulcasts available since their respective launch dates.

TSN2 - Replaced a part-time "alternate feed" in operation since 1997. For the most part, it has served as an overflow channel for TSN's various sports rights, particularly when all four "regional" feeds are jointly carrying another major event.

TSN3 - The primary TSN feed for viewers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and northwestern Ontario.

TSN4 - The primary TSN feed for viewers in most of Ontario.

TSN5 - The primary TSN feed for viewers in eastern Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada.

TSN 4K - A part-time feed for telecasts presented in 4K UHDTV, including selected Toronto Raptors, Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, and Canadian Football League games. The telecasts are currently carried on special 4K event channels on Bell Fibe TV (1399), Rogers Cable (999) and Telus Optik TV (905), accessible via their 4K-specific set-top boxes (Rogers Cable and Bell Fibe also airing 4K telecasts from Sportsnet).

The other sports channels owned or managed by Bell Media and ESPN Inc., including ESPN Classic, NHL Network, and the French-language Réseau des sports and related channels, operate under separate licences.

TSN's flagship news program is SportsCentre, a sports news program airing several times throughout the day. Formerly known as Sportsdesk, it was revamped to closer resemble ESPN's own SportsCenter (including the use of its theme music, logo, and opening) in the Fall of 2001 as part of a corporate restructuring, closer aligning itself with minority owner ESPN. In 2006, a new studio was built in order to prepare the show for its transition to high definition – becoming the first daily news program in Canada to be produced in HD beginning on September 25, 2006. Other original programs on TSN include the daily hockey news program That's Hockey, SportsCentre-branded countdown shows, the automotive newsmagazine Motoring, and TSN The Reporters.

In connection with ESPN's minority ownership in TSN, the network has a long-term agreement with ESPN International for the Canadian rights to ESPN original and studio programs, including Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, Sunday NFL Countdown, NFL Live, Baseball Tonight, ESPN FC, and ESPN Films documentaries including the 30 for 30 series, among others, though it does not always air these programs simultaneously with their U.S. broadcasts.

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TSN2 is a Canadian pay television channel that acts as the secondary feed of sports-centred channel The Sports Network (TSN) that is owned by CTV Specialty Television Inc. It was launched in its current form on August 29, 2008.

Following TSN's August 2014 expansion of its service into a regional sports network, TSN2 served primarily as a secondary outlet for national programming, but added regional programming in 2017.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) had approved a separate TSN2 channel in 2000, but was never launched due to a prohibition on live programming. The authority for this channel expired in 2004 and was never re-applied for, so the present TSN2 is not directly connected to the 2000 licence.

TSN2 operates under the same CRTC licence for TSN as a whole, but initially operated under the legal fiction that it was a timeshift channel of TSN for Western Canada. This meant that the majority of programming must have been tape delayed from TSN's main feed, but it could still air a limited amount of alternative programming. With the early 2010 implementation of new conditions of licence from the CRTC which permit multiple feeds with no limits on additional programming, the tape delay is no longer observed, and the channel operates with an autonomous schedule.

TSN first launched what it then called its "alternate feed" in 1997 as a result of occasional regional blackouts for TSN programming in some areas. In its original iteration, the alternate feed could only air on analogue cable in specific areas, replacing the national service, though it was offered in parallel with the main feed on national satellite providers. Alternate programming could make up a maximum of 10% of the TSN schedule – an average of 2.4 hours a day.

In fall 2006, the CRTC allowed TSN to air multiple feeds nationally, with the alternate feed only available on digital platforms, as had previously been permitted for Sportsnet's regional feeds. In essence, this meant that for digital cable and satellite subscribers, TSN now had two channels on which to air programming. The broadcaster's use of the alternate feed changed significantly following this decision, as the alternate feed began to carry a much larger number of live events that could be aired nationally when the main feed was carrying another ongoing event.

On August 6, 2008, The Globe and Mail announced that the TSN alternate feed would be replaced by a new network known as TSN2. The new channel promised "major league programming" throughout the day, and would have extensive coverage of auto racing and tennis. Unlike the existing TSN alternate feed, which was available free of charge, service providers (and potentially, in turn, consumers) would be required to pay extra in order to carry TSN2, and the alternate feed was discontinued in August 2008. Unlike the alternate feed, TSN2 would also be available in high definition.

Initially, TSN2 was restricted to acting as a timeshift channel for TSN, with most non-live programming being aired on a three-hour tape delay from TSN proper, allowing TSN2 viewers in the Pacific Time Zone to watch many programs at the same local time as TSN viewers in the Eastern Time Zone. However, as had been the case with the alternate feed, up to 10% of the TSN2 schedule could consist of alternative live sporting events that cannot air on TSN due to other programming commitments.

The new channel was launched on August 29, 2008 at 7 p.m. ET in standard and high definition, with live coverage of the US Open tennis tournament continued from TSN, followed by an encore presentation of a Friday night CFL game aired earlier on TSN.

Since February 1, 2010, TSN has been subject to revised conditions of licence (since formalized as Category C licensing) that allow TSN2 to operate autonomously from TSN's main channel as a pure multiplex. TSN launched three more multiplex channels—TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5, on August 25, 2014, serving primarily as regional feeds of TSN.

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TSN Radio is a semi-national sports radio brand and part-time network in Canada carried on AM radio stations owned by Bell Media Radio. The TSN Radio brand, and some of the stations' content, is shared with Bell Media's television sports channel, The Sports Network. With the American sports media company ESPN being a minority shareholder in TSN, most of the stations also air some ESPN Radio programming, usually on weekends and/or overnight.

TSN Radio currently operates stations in Toronto (CHUM 1050), Montreal (CKGM 690), Ottawa (CFGO 1200), Hamilton (CKOC 1150), Winnipeg (CFRW 1290), Edmonton (CFRN 1260), and Vancouver (CKST 1040). However, each station produces the vast majority of its programming locally, apart from some live event broadcasts as well as U.S.-produced syndicated programming. Unlike sports radio networks in the United States, there is no all-day 'network' feed, and very few Canadian-produced programs are simulcast nationally (though some local programs are simulcast on TSN's TV channels).

It was announced on February 17, 2011, that its Toronto station CHUM (1050 AM) would discontinue its audio simulcast of CP24's television programming as "CP24 Radio 1050" and switch to an all-sports radio format as "TSN Radio 1050" effective April 13, 2011, becoming the flagship station of the network. The company further announced plans on October 3, 2011, to convert its two radio stations in Winnipeg and Montreal under the TSN Radio banner (becoming TSN Radio 1290 and TSN Radio 990 respectively) on October 5, 2011.

The network in some respects represents a revival of the defunct The Team network, which formerly aired on many of the same stations in the early 2000s when they were owned by CHUM Limited; some of those stations remained "Team"-branded sports radio stations right up until joining TSN Radio. Bell Canada gained 100% control of CTVglobemedia's assets on April 1, 2011, thus renaming the company's name to Bell Media and likewise renamed the radio division, CHUM Radio to Bell Media Radio.

It was reported on January 19, 2011 that Rob Gray, who was the program director for CKST and CFTE, had been hired to be program director for both CHUM and the new TSN Radio network.

To date, TSN Radio has not yet created a full-day national programming schedule along the lines of the 24-hour ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio services in the United States, nor is one expected. Several weeks before confirming plans for TSN Radio, TSN president Stewart Johnston argued that "local is key" for the success of sports radio in Canada, as demonstrated by the earlier failure of The Team's attempt to produce most of its programming for national distribution out of Toronto. Indeed, the TSN stations rarely if ever carry another station's local programming. Although there are some common programs, this is mostly limited to a handful of specialty weekend shows, and to U.S. syndicated programming such as The Dan Patrick Show and ESPN Radio (and even these programs are not carried on all stations).

Mike Richards signed on to host the Toronto station's morning show, Mike Richards in the Morning. The show airs from 5:30am-9am (ET), and was expected to be simulcast on TSN2 beginning in September 2011. However, due to delays in the studio being built at 9 Channel Nine Court, the premiere of the show was delayed to February 18, 2013. CHUM's new drive time show, TSN Drive with Dave Naylor, also premiered in simulcast the same day. With the announcement of TSN1, TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5, the studios of TSN Radio stations in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Ottawa were also configured to allow television simulcasts. TSN and Mike Richards mutally parted ways in August 2016.

Additionally, TSN has radio broadcasting rights for golf's The Open Championship, The U.S. Open, UEFA Euro 2012 and 2016, the NBA Playoffs, and NFL on Westwood One Sports. As part of TSN's television contract extension with the Canadian Football League, TSN Radio also owned the radio broadcast rights to the Grey Cup from 2013 to 2018.