Keith Pelley is busy getting into shape, Olympic shape that is.

The veteran broadcaster, who heads up the joint CTV/Rogers Olympic consortium for the 2010 Winter and 2012 Summer Games, has lost 23 pounds, and jokes that he is practicing sleeping four hours a night — ahead of a career-defining event that will unfold in Vancouver on Feb. 12, 2010.

Yet Pelley is the picture of calm in his suburban Toronto office as he mulls the momentous task at hand, which began nearly two years ago when he stepped down as president of the Toronto Argonauts to oversee coverage for the Games.

‘It was a difficult decision because I had a great job at the Argos,’ he recalls. ‘But if you like sports and you like media, the Olympics in your own country… it doesn’t get much better than that.’

The stakes are high for the consortium, which needs to recoup the record US$150 million it paid for the rights to Vancouver 2010 and London 2012, amid an economic downturn. (CTV owns a majority 80% stake, while Rogers Media has 20%.)

The unflappable Pelley believes that the Olympics in Vancouver is ‘as close to recession-proof’ as they can be. (The consortium had, at press time, secured 15 partners.)

‘You can say that the Olympics in Salt Lake City or Atlanta was a sporting event… but the minute it comes to your own country, it’s way beyond sports. It’s about culture and people,’ quips Pelley, who started his career in 1986 at TSN as an editorial assistant, and rose through the ranks to oversee programming and production before his appointment as president of TSN in 2001. He left the role to join the Argonauts two years later.

The consortium is looking to reach Canada’s 33 million citizens with a coverage philosophy of ‘watch what you want, when you want, and how you want.’ Predictably, it has turned its focus to online, where ‘every second will be streamed’ at ctvolympics.ca, according to Pelley, who says that traffic on the website is currently 24% higher than their target.

In addition to online — between CTV and Rogers — Canucks can have their pick of 11 different television networks that will be airing the opening ceremonies in seven different languages. During the Games, the main CTV network will broadcast 22 hours a day, followed by TSN and Rogers Sportsnet with 19 hours each. Other broadcasters include OLN, APTN, OMNI 1 & 2 and, in Quebec, TQS, RDS and RIS. The consortium also closed a separate deal with the Asian Television Network, and will use its specialties such as MuchMusic and Bravo! to promote the Games.

‘When you put it all together, it’s a massive commitment from two media companies on one particular property,’ observes Pelley, who oversees roughly 130 people, most of whom are working in the bustling Scarborough office on all facets of production including research, features and promos, and sales and marketing. The number is expected to grow to include 1,200 people come the Olympics.

Pelley doesn’t like to dwell on the challenges that lie before him, remarking only that time is now their biggest foe.

‘The way I used to look at it is that CBC did a very good job, but they were a couple of television stations, and they had a component of their Olympic website on their current website… if they were like a home, we’re like a full village,’ he analyzes. ‘The size and breadth of the consortium is the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge as well.’

The biggest opportunity he refers to may also be the fact that a Canadian has never won gold on home soil in either the Calgary Winter (1988) or Montreal Summer Olympic Games (1976).

‘It’s going to happen in Vancouver… and we have multiple platforms to communicate [the athletes’] stories, which will be etched in the minds of Canadians forever,’ Pelley adds.

Et Cetera…

• Spends down time with his son and wife: ‘Right now I’m working, and spending time with my family, and that’s it’
• Is set to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia in 2010
• Decided to lose weight after he met Canuck Olympic aerialist Steve Omischl
• Has given up his favorite food: pizza
and chocolate
• Enjoys listening to classic rock, from AC/DC to Rolling Stones and BTO
• Favorite sport to watch is golf