Back in 2005, when CTVglobemedia and Rogers Media teamed up on a whopping US$153 million bid to beat out CBC for the rights to the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games, the global economy was in growth mode. But times have changed. In a recent story in The Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games acknowledged current budgetary shortfalls – believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars – caused by a sharp drop in global sponsorship.

In the face of that, the English- and French-language websites for Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (as the CTVgm-Rogers partnership is called) are already live, and Alon Marcovici (pronounced MAR-ko-vitch), VP, digital media and research, remains upbeat.

The consortium launched its CTVOlympics.ca and RDSOlympiques.ca websites a whole year before the Games’ Feb. 12, 2010 launch to slowly build hype and audience. In what is being touted as the most comprehensive ever web offering for an Olympics rights-holder, the group will stream every single minute of competition in HD – amounting to up to 14 simultaneous streams and 2,400 hours of live video that will be later available on demand.

The web will also feature exclusive content, such as a ‘digital lounge’ that will contain interviews and storytelling handled in a markedly different way from what appears on TV. All Olympics stories appearing on the website of The Globe and Mail – the official national newspaper of the consortium – will drive readers directly to CTVOlmpics.ca, with links to all those stories then popping up on other consortium sites, including those operated by Sportsnet, TSN, The Fan 590 and CTV. ‘We’re effectively an Olympic wire service,’ Marcovici says.

User-generated content will include commentary on the posted articles, uploaded events, photos taken by spectators, and amateur videos of the cross-Canada torch relay. A game will allow users to record the play-by-play audio for a recent or classic Olympic moment.

The concept behind RDSOlympiques.ca, according to Marcovici, is ‘equal functionality, different content,’ with less focus on events that are not popular in Quebec, such as curling, and more attention paid to the province’s elite competitors.

The official sites’ home pages currently feature banner ads from the likes of RBC and the Royal Canadian Mint. It’s Marcovici’s job to ensure online sponsors enjoy customized positioning. ‘Each one of them wants something special,’ he explains. ‘So, on the website we’ll have probably 15 or so unique activations.’

In one example of convergence done right, the RCM is sponsoring an online contest in which participants vote on the ‘Top 10 Canadian Olympic Winter Moments’ and can win trips to the Games. The results of the poll will form the basis of a one-hour TV show to air Sept. 19 on CTV and TQS, and the RCM will mint actual 25-cent coins depicting the top three moments.

While Marcovici won’t divulge the number of unique visitors the sites have thus far attracted, he says the page view count is 60% over what had been projected.

‘We have work to do on the French side of things, and we have work to do on driving people to video, because people don’t think about watching video of the [Winter] Olympic sports in the middle of summer,’ he concedes. ‘We still have work to do on increasing our page views per unique visitor. But every single one of those metrics has gone on an above-expectations growth.’

Marcovici is no stranger to the Games, having managed the NBC Olympics research room in Sydney in 2000 and Salt Lake City in 2002. Previous roles also include VP and CMO of the Toronto Board of Trade, VP of marketing and communications for the NHL’s Florida Panthers, and director of marketing media for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

He currently manages a division with about 25 staff, ramping up to 100 by February with the addition of contract workers, freelancers and employees currently working in other capacities for the broadcast partners.

One Salt Lake story Marcovici would like to see repeated in Vancouver is a gold-medal hockey game for Canada, which went on to a disastrous quarterfinals bow-out in Turin in 2006. Getting the record 10.6 million TV audience CBC enjoyed for that Salt Lake game would certainly be nice.

‘We’ve made all of our projections as if there wasn’t [going to be a gold-medal game for Canada], but obviously we have a lot to gain if there is. The only people who can dampen that are the 23 players on the ice themselves,’ he says, laughing.

The Salt Lake game was one of those rare events that had Canadians from coast to coast gathering in homes and bars to collectively cheer – in other words, a perfect TV moment. So what role could the individual experiences of online and mobile play in that?

‘How many people are going to be at your party with an iPhone or a netbook? Or they’re going to notice your computer and they’re just going to run over there and check out the stats? There are certain elements of that event that just take it a notch above,’ Marcovici says.

And then there’s the fact the hockey finals will be streamed live.

‘Ten million people watched that Salt Lake game – there are 23 million [Canadians] who didn’t watch it,’ he adds. ‘Some of those 23 million people weren’t in front of a television. But if you can be in front of a computer, you can watch it in English, you can watch it in French, you can watch it uninterrupted on the world feed without any sound, or you can listen to the radio broadcast online.’

When the consortium made its costly bid for the Games, the potential for mobile content seemed massive. Unfortunately that potential remains unrealized. Mobile will factor into the consortium’s plans, but on a far smaller scale than the web.

The group will sell exclusive rights to show its video content to an as-yet-unannounced wireless partner. One might assume that Rogers, being part of the consortium, would be a shoe-in, but smart money actually says Bell, which gets right of first refusal as a national Olympic sponsor. The key mobile offerings will include providing the latest news, medal standings, photos and programming information.

‘We expect that 99-plus percent of our [digital] traffic will come from the online platform, and that’s where we’re putting most of our eggs,’ Marcovici says. ‘But we do want Joe and Jane Canadian to have a pervasive experience with us so when you are [away from a TV] you don’t have to miss out.’

Mobile represents but a small piece in the puzzle that is the consortium’s all-encompassing TV, radio, print and digital strategy. ‘Really,’ says Marcovici, ‘it’s to be there when and how you want.’