Rogers Sportsnet
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Rogers Sportsnet logo
Rogers Sportsnet is a 24-hour Canadian cable broadcaster of sports, which has equivalent digital television signals. It is owned by Rogers Sportsnet Inc., which is owned by Rogers Media.
Rogers Sportsnet was founded by CTV Television Network as CTV Sportsnet, a name which complemented their CTV Newsnet headline-news cable channel. It went on the air for the first time on October 9, 1998. When CTV purchased NetStar, the parent company of TSN, in 1999, they were forced to sell either Sportsnet or TSN by the CRTC. They later sold Sportsnet to Rogers, at which point the service was renamed Rogers Sportsnet.
Broadcasting nationally across Canada, the station is actually like a network, with four regional feeds airing different sporting events tailored to the region they serve. As well, Sportsnet also operates a national high-definition programming service. The Sportsnet feeds are:
- Sportsnet East, which serves Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as the Ottawa market in Ontario and Quebec.
- Sportsnet Ontario (except Ottawa).
- Sportsnet West, which serves Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nunavut and Northwest Territories.
- Sportsnet Pacific, which serves British Columbia and Yukon.
- Sportsnet HD, which airs Sportsnet programming in 16:9 Widescreen or HDTV. Most of the time, the channel is a mirror of the Ontario feed, but will sometimes simulcast programmes with the other three regions or air completely seperate programming.
Although cable companies in Canada are only permitted to carry the local Sportsnet feed on analogue cable packages, all four feeds can be carried on digital cable. However, in some instances programming on the out-of-market Sportsnet feeds, such as regional National Hockey League games, are blacked out.
In early 2005, Rogers Sportsnet was part of the consortium that won the Canadian broadcast rights to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics. This was considered a serious coup, as the CBC had consistently won Olympic broadcast rights from the 1996 Summer Olympics through to the 2008 Summer Olympics. CTV and TQS will be the primary broadcasters; Rogers Sportsnet, TSN and RDS will provide supplementary coverage.
External link
- Rogers Sportsnet Website (http://www.sportsnet.ca)