Over the years the sport cable networks have taken over curling and with multiple channels covered it fairly well so long as it was the major rinks. While ratings were good, it has left Curling Canada long for the fuller coverage they used to have with CBC. Fans have had to look over various broadcasters to watch their teams. And pay for those rights unlike CBC.
The new five year agreement between Rogers Sportsnet and CBC will add 300 hours of curling to the CBC network and CBC Gem. It will bring CBC full circle as it was their broadcasting that set the standard for curling in the world. Curlers have complained for some time that they were being squeezed off the airwaves. CBC and the cable channels had so much hockey, it just didn't leave as much time for curling. That changes with this deal.
Curling does get high ratings but generally attracts an older audience. That could change if the audience can find more ways to grow through streaming, mainstream TV and the like. Hockey became too expensive and too dominant for CBC. And for a decade, they really didn't benefit from it in terms of cost.
CBC needs to upgrade their sports departments from local to the national level. The main webpage for CBC barely mentions sports which the BBC in the UK would never dare to do! Seriously, if the mandate of CBC is to unify the country, the deletion of amateur and pro sport is not the way to do it. Perhaps that can change.
Curling won't be the last sport added to Saturday. Perhaps in the next weeks we'll hear other announced sports being slotted in Saturday. The networks used to cover far more sports than just football and hockey. They covered a whole lot more amateur sports as well. It would do them good to go back to that.
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