Dear Canada,

First of all, let me congratulate you on the great job you did hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. And also for the medal successes of your athletes.

While I’m at it, I’d like to apologize for the behavior of the British press, whose desperation to shore up their flagging circulations has led to some hysterical coverage. Most of them couldn’t even host a dinner party let alone the most complex multi-sports event on the planet.

At least you can console yourselves with the fact that our self-appointed guardians of free speech have now turned the spotlight on Russia, whose poor performance in Vancouver will prompt soul-searching ahead of Sochi 2014. And don’t imagine London 2012 will get off lightly. Stories about delayed stadia construction, ill-prepared athletes and lax security will already be drafted.

The most ill-advised comment came from The Guardian, which suggested that Vancouver might go down as ‘the worst Games ever.’ In my view, that honor goes to Berlin 1936, when fascist dictator Adolf Hitler arrested all Gypsies and only allowed Aryans to compete for Germany. But, hey, who said perspective sold papers.

In truth, The Guardian is less of an issue than the section of the newspaper business which is controlled by media baron Rupert Murdoch – namely The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The News of the World. The Guardian may put its foot in its mouth occasionally, but the Murdoch press is totally focused on bringing public opinion in line with the chief’s commercial interests.

When not berating Canadians, Murdoch’s U.K.-based newspaper stable focuses on its day job: manipulating the political and cultural agenda.

To cite a current example: a government committee has just concluded that Sunday paper The News of the World was guilty of widespread illegal phone-hacking in 2009. While this scandal was covered widely by most of the national press, The Times gave it no prominence, preferring to focus on an anti-trust story concerning Google. Why? Because viewed through Murdoch’s looking glass, Google is a foot soldier of the anti-Christ.

Another of News Corp’s pet hates is the BBC, something I’ve referred to in this column before. Once again, the company uses its newspaper hounds to get its message across, since TV outlets like Sky News are subject to onerous obligations such as the need to be objective.

So, for example, the tabloid end of Murdoch’s market tends to focus on BBC wastefulness (too many production staff in Vancouver, too much expenditure on gifts), while the up-market end deals with the broader policy debate about the BBC’s adverse impact on its commercial rivals.

This month, News Corp’s relentless assault on the BBC appeared finally to reap its rewards, with the corporation’s director-general Mark Thompson unveiling widespread cuts to radio and online and a new set of priorities with regard to BBC TV content. Among these new priorities was a commitment to take BBC2 more up-market, giving the commercial sector greater freedom to grow audience share in primetime.

Although Thompson has denied it, his cuts are being seen as a way of appeasing critics ahead of an upcoming general election. Although the changes will lead to around 600 job losses, the theory is that this will go some way towards keeping the corporation’s licence fee intact – should we elect a government which is more sympathetic to Murdoch’s stance on the BBC than the current regime.

What does it mean for non-U.K. companies who have had some reason to deal with the corporation? Well one key change is that the BBC wants to cut its expenditure on imported programming by 20%. So the implication here is that rights owners must start wooing channels like Five instead (if they haven’t already).

Then again, the decision to drive BBC2 up-market suggests there may be more scope for factual and drama copros. After all, it’s not as though BBC2 is going to come out of this process with a vast budget to spend.

Of real interest to Canadians is the fact that the BBC is pulling back from teen and youth programming but giving CBeebies and CBBC an extra £10 million a year to spend on U.K.-produced content. While that is mainly intended to help out U.K. producers, there’s clearly going to be some copro opportunities here.

The BBC’s commercial arm BBC Worldwide is to be less aggressive domestically – and may even sell its magazine business. But this is unlikely to make much difference abroad. Indeed, with BBCW having been told to generate ‘at least two-thirds’ of its revenue from international markets by 2015, it may try to offset weaker domestic revenues by expanding its activities in markets like Canada (where it has a digital channel).

Not to be overlooked either is the fact that the BBC is going to reduce expenditure on sports rights.

So, by the next time Canada hosts the Winter Olympics (Edmonton 2030?), the BBC may no longer be covering it. Then again, if News Corp gets its way the BBC won’t exist.