A National Hockey League work stoppage this fall would be a body-check to the CBC, but whether the public broadcaster will be slightly bruised or put on the long-term injury list is a question mark.

Whether Hockey Night in Canada will go to air Oct. 16 as planned depends on the results of a Sept. 15 deadline in contract talks between NHL players and owners. A potential lockout will put the high-profile CBC property in a time-out.

‘We’re hoping it doesn’t happen,’ says CBC spokesperson Ruth-Ellen Soles, constrained in how much she can divulge. ‘We have a contingency about what we will do and we will announce that when there is something definitive. [The program] is very important from a revenue and audience perspective,’ she admits. ‘It’s close to the top in revenue,’ she says, but would not disclose details or advertising strategies.

Among Canada’s most-watched programs, Hockey Night in Canada is the only CBC property to regularly crack the top 20 dominated by CTV and Global programs.

Western-based media buyer David Stanger says the advertisers who buy time in hockey are not likely to stick around if hockey is replaced with other programming. He notes that, with fewer viewers watching non-hockey programming, the value of that ad time will drop. Whatever the CBC does to fill that Hockey Night in Canada slot, Stanger explains, will be important in keeping its audience in the habit of watching CBC on Saturday nights.

CBC’s hockey reality show Making the Cut, however, will go ahead Sept. 21, work stoppage or not. Thousands of hockey hopefuls vied for 68 slots on the show. Those athletes – who have a shot at attending an NHL training camp with a Canadian team – will be cut to six by the end of the 13-week series, an apparent placeholder for pro hockey. The program was always a part of the fall launch.

‘It’s a great show,’ says Stanger. ‘I think the CBC was anxious to acquire it as a program to keep the hockey momentum going. It will be an advertiser and spectator draw, but no less or greater than during a regular hockey season.’

He says Making the Cut might attract a fraction of the hockey advertising budget that would go to Hockey Night in Canada, but advertisers needing that audience might sit on their budgets until the season resumes. Other potential winners for hockey money might be the Canadian Football League and, in the Toronto area, the NBA’s Raptors.

Investment in big blockbuster movies such as The Lord of the Rings are part of the regular CBC schedule and not part of the Plan B hockey-lockout contingency, says Soles.

In the last NHL work stoppage in 1994, the CBC ran repeats of classic hockey games in the Hockey Night in Canada time slot over the 103-day lockout. The regular season did not begin until January.

The CBC’s concern about the fate of the coming NHL season comes on the heels of the Athens Summer Olympics and during the ramp-up of the World Cup of Hockey. Again, the CBC won’t divulge ad details about the Summer Olympics, but Stanger says the value of the Games for Canadian advertisers was limited by the repeat broadcasts in primetime of live action aired during the day and by the Canadian team’s early poor medal performance.

The NHL quandary puts added emphasis on the World Cup, which starts Aug. 30, right after the closing ceremonies of the Athens Games, and runs to Sept. 14.

‘The World Cup of Hockey delivers large numbers in Canada,’ says Stanger, comparing the advertiser value to that of the Olympics. ‘Hockey is a national pastime. It’s a really easy sell – especially with a cloud hanging over the NHL.’

The World Cup, a tournament that plays in several European and North American cities, was last held in 1996 when the U.S. beat Canada in the final best-of-three-games matchup.

Last time, the World Cup outperformed the average Hockey Night in Canada game – from an audience perspective. According to Christian Hasse, spokesperson for CBC Sports, a regular NHL game can generate 1.2 million viewers. The 1996 World Cup round-robin games generated 1.4 million Canadian viewers, the playoffs increased to 1.5 million viewers and the finals to 3.1 million.

This year’s semi-finals (in Toronto and St. Paul) and the finals in Toronto will be aired in high definition.

According to CBC, there will be no change in strategy to promote and market the World Cup in light of the looming lockout in the NHL.

-www.cbc.ca