It is being reported that TSN has completed an agreement for Winnipeg Jets broadcasts.
This would include TV and radio broadcasts and push CJOB for only the second time in its history out Winnipeg Jets broadcasting. Three years after the Jets got into the NHL in 1979, CKY won the broadcast rights and Curt Keilback and Ken (The Friar) Nicolson were allowed to leave from one broadcaster to go the other. They would make the return trip a number of years later when CJOB regained the broadcast rights. I still can't remember the exact dates they moved back and forth nor can I remember about the TV broadcasting. I re-call the CKY years for local Jets broadcasts but the WHA had CKND broadcasts. Any help here would be appreciated.
CJOB has been the broadcaster of the Manitoba Moose the last 15 years. No one has done hockey more than they over the last years. If CFRW had not converted over sports radio broadcasting in the last year, they might have been a shoe in.
However, Sports Radio 1290 with the backing of Bell and the TSN sport network had the one-two punch of TV and radio broadcasts under one roof that CJOB just didn't have.
CJOB's parent company Corus Entertainment does not have a national sports broadcaster for TV. Well, at least nothing that does hockey broadcasts. For Manitoba Moose broadcasts, this was not a big impediment but in today's NHL where every game is televised, it is.
Unlike in the past when CJOB wrested the broadcasts back to their station, it seems the loss of hockey will be permanent unless Corus acquires a sports broadcaster or if some sort of partnership is formed with another TV network.
I have no idea how long the Blue Bombers radio contract is tied up but CJOB is no doubt going to find they face the same problem of a radio/TV connection. TSN already does CFL football. Is it really a stretch to think that 1290 Sports Radio might eventually buy the radio rights too?
CJOB will prevail. However, the loss of hockey broadcasts is huge. One wonders if this the event that knocks the station out of first place in the radio ratings.
