I skipped over to Bell Canada’s web site a few minutes ago, looking for whether or not the Ottawa/Buffalo game tonight was going to broadcast in high definition. Most of the time it isn’t, and tonight is no different. Hockey Night in Canada really oughta be renamed Hockey Night in Toronto with Don Cherry and the Maple Leafs… but I digress.
What was I confronted with when I arrived at the site? Well, take a look.
OK. So, Bell’s a little behind on their browser support. I am using IE 7, not 6, and it’s only been out for a couple of months or so now.   And what do I care if they want to pop up spurious warnings?
Except that Bell Sympatico is the partnership between Microsoft and Bell Canada. Bell Sympatico is the ISP that owns the rights to MSN in Canada. You would think that Bell Canada, of all the ISP’s out there, would be johnny on the spot supporting Microsoft’s new browser, wouldn’t you? Then again, they are a phone company. That might be expecting a little too much from them.
How do you suppose they plan to compete against those lightweight internet companies, anyway? It’s an interesting question, now that they’ve won their battle to deregulate internet telephony.
Oh well… game time!
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I spoke recently with an acquaintance (a free lance Director) who is quite familiar with the CBC Sport High Definition situation:
1. At this time CBC only has two crews equipped to produce high def broadcasts, one in the east and one in the west. So they can only pick two games each week.
2. There is a shortage of technical personnel who can produce high definition. CBC has gone from 45 high def technical people to five over the past few months. These people can currently get higher rewards from free lancing rather than working as CBC employees and they are in high demand.
And, while this is a subjective comment, I also find the quality of picture from CBC (even though it is 1080i) to be inferior to what I get on CTV or U.S. productions. I am told this is partly due to the lack of qualified technical personnel.
Now if Rogers would return to picking up NESN's HD broadcast of Bruins games for NHL Centre Ice subscribers, I would be much happier. (Hint — I want to watch my neighbour's son who already has one assist tonight and had three points Thursday night.)
I’m ok with the fact that the CBC only has two high def crews, Jim. Let’s just see some guys OTHER than the Toronto games in HD!!!
And yeah, I agree – I think the US HD broadcasts have a better quality picture. The behind the net cameras that ABC deployed last year were phenomenal.
Alec,
I am a Bell Employee and was mortified to learn of this problem. At least you can still go through and continue on to use the site but it does look bad when we have such a tight partnership with Microsoft.
Thanks
Nick, perhaps you can gently prod the IT department to do something about this. For the record, I think that Bell is a pretty well managed business when compared to a lot of incumbent telco’s.
Best, A