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 Chris Cuthbert. (Photo: Joe Warmington, SUN) |
CBC coughed up another fumble Monday, sacking the voice of the Grey Cup, Chris Cuthbert.
Could you, in all of North American television, find a less likely guy to fire? Cuthbert is great at his job, on top of the games, the poster boy for Canadian excellence in broadcasting. Plus -- and here is where the guy stands almost alone -- he is, by all accounts, ego-less. He is as far removed from the showboating yahoos who man the Fox football booth as you can get. The guy knew all the names and always called a good game.
The official reason for his termination after a stellar 21-year career? Fallout from the hockey lockout.
CBC sports executive director Nancy Lee, we are told, looked at every possible alternative before letting Cuthbert go. (Lee, who is out of the country, didn't get around to talking to Cuthbert directly until yesterday; he found out his fate Monday through his agent.)
Thirty Hockey Night In Canada regulars were laid off last September, including Don Cherry, Ron MacLean and Bob Cole. Cuthbert is supposed to be the last casualty. The ultimate company man, he would have sat on the DL, taken a sabbatical, coasted without pay until hockey returned he told Bob McCown on Rogers Sportsnet last night. CBC just let him go.
The loss of hockey cannot be underestimated. As well as leaving their schedule in tatters in April, May and June, the cancellation of the NHL playoffs rips a $50-million hole out of CBC's advertising budget, according to some estimates.
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But sacking Cuthbert over the hockey lockout is like firing me for that silly fist fight on The West Wing last night. Sure I cover television, but I had nothing to do with it, honest.
Cuthbert was the heir apparent to succeed Bob Cole as the voice of Hockey Night In Canada. But, to sports fans, he was CBC's No. 1 football man, as well as the go-to guy for figure skating (Mark Lee will now work next month's Worlds). He was also a valuable member of CBC's Olympic broadcast team, which still has two big Games to cover.
CBC sports staffers were dumbfounded at Monday's firing. New CBC president Richard Stursberg tried to work damage control in the office yesterday, and was bluntly told that losing Cuthbert was a bigger blow to staff morale than losing the Olympics.
When Ron MacLean's neck was on the line a few years ago, Canadians went nuts. MacLean was re-signed and peace, order and good government were restored. Last summer, CBC backed off sacking Grapes after viewers put him near the top of CBC's Greatest Canadian list. The people had spoken.
You'd think a flag would have come up at the CBC bunker over Cuthbert's termination. Canadians value these guys even if broadcast executives don't. Whatever the reasons for Cuthbert's dismissal, there's a bottom line whiff to this hasty exit which doesn't wash with CBC's dwindling viewer base.
The fact that it came the day before CBC received a $60 million quality-programming fund extension is the ultimate irony. Why couldn't CBC create a quality program Cuthbert could host?
For example: Why hasn't CBC used some of its talented bench to do the definitive, network, prime-time take on the hockey lockout? The story of the winter just won't go away on sports radio and television. Why not do the ultimate hockey show, hosted by Peter Mansbridge, with Cuthbert and others working the boards?
Impossible in this day of entertainment-obsessed network television? Look at tonight's U.S. schedule: ABC has Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs -- Seeing Is Believing (8 p.m.). The two-hour news program delves into all those UFO sightings, from Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 to a giant, blinking spacecraft spotted in five adjoining Illinois towns in 2000.
Jennings, who last year went looking for St. Paul, gets to do a couple of these a year. Surely Canadians would follow Cuthbert on a prime time mission to get to the bottom of the hockey lockout.
Maybe Jennings will report tonight that Cuthbert was abducted by aliens. That would make more sense.