Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: February 2006

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1527

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

INTRAWEST MULLS OVER 'STRATEGIC DIRECTION'
The corporate owner of Blackcomb/Whistler Resorts, which is a venue of the 2010 Winter Olympics, said today it had hired Goldman, Sachs & Co. of New York to help it with "a strategic review" of its operations and assets. The stock of Intrawest (TSX:ITW) rose about 16% on the news, as shareholders both welcomed the news and speculated that the firm may be searching for a merger partner, or contemplating a sale of assets. The firm had nothing to say about the status of the 2010 venue and it owns a number of resorts besides that one, including Winter Park and Copper Mountain ski resorts in Colorado. "During the past 24 months, Intrawest has made significant progress in broadening its range of leisure businesses, most notably with the acquisition and expansion of Abercrombie & Kent, as well as extending our business reach into Europe and Asia," said Joe Houssian, Intrawest's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Intrawest stands at a pivotal point in its evolution," he added. "It makes sense for us at this time to evaluate all of the different ways in which we can capitalize on the opportunities in front of us for the benefit of shareholders, and to ensure that we have the best possible capital structure in place. Given current robust market conditions, and new opportunities resulting from our recent successes, our Board believes it is appropriate to undertake a comprehensive review of all our strategic and financial options before finalizing our strategic plans for the next several years."

75,000 SEE BC/CANADA PLACE
The numbers of people who have visited BC/Canada Place, the log building in the heart of Torino, continue to mount. B.C.'s minister in charge of the Olympics, Colin Hansen, said that as of last weekend, 75,000 had toured the project, which will stay open until the end of the Paralympic Games next month.

EASY ON THE BURN RATE
From our calculator during lunch: VANOC CEO John Furlong said today the budget for the eight-minute segment of the Torino Winter Olympics was C$1.5 million. That's out of a total budget of C$28 million, in 2002 dollars, set aside in the Bid Book for all of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games cultural programs, including the 2006 Torino Closing Ceremony segment, Olympiad festivals (2006 to 2010), education and youth programs and youth camp, and cultural programs administration, but it doesn't include the Opening and Closing 2010 Ceremonies, to which another C$28 million is allocated by VANOC. Nor does it include the budget assigned to the Olympic Flame Relay and Olympic Medal Ceremonies, which is C$26.5 million. Lessee, the eight-minute segment cost an average of C$187,500 per minute. Multiplied by a three-hour closing ceremony -- and this is only back-of-the-envelope work -- spending at that rate would mean one closing ceremony would cost C$33 million.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1526
VANCOUVER RAISES OLYMPIC FLAG

The City of Vancouver raised the Olympic flag on the north side of City Hall today, where it will fly through the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The flag, a slightly smaller copy of the 54-year-old, so-called "Oslo Flag" that was entrusted to Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan during the closing ceremonies of the 2006 Games, will be displayed in a special case in the lobby of City Hall. The flag symbolizes Vancouver's tenure as an Olympic City from now until 2010, where it will be handed over at the end of the Olympics to the city chosen in 2007 by the IOC to host the 2014 Winter Games.

Accompanied by an honour guard that involved members of the Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services, the Olympic flag was marched to the north lawn of Vancouver City Hall and then raised up an 24-metre (80-foot) flagpole in front of a crowd of about 400 people during the City staff's lunch hour that also included the general public and nine protesters from West Vancouver.

The protesters were objecting to a provincial government decision dealing with the route the rebuilt Sea-to-Sky Highway between Vancouver and Whistler is to take through West Vancouver. City staff leaned out of windows and lined the building's parapets to watch the ceremony, while a helicopter buzzed overhead, and police and other security officials blended in at the edge of the crowd. The protesters, though they attracted a lot of media attention, were generally quiet

"This is the start of our Olympiad," said mayor Sam Sullivan. "What I took home from Torino is the enthusiasm and passion of the thousands of people who helped stage such an enormous event. This is what we will now bring to our 2010 Winter Games."

"In Torino, we were vividly reminded of the power of Olympism, of the values and spirit that define the Olympic movement and that live inside all of us. And now we have a daily reminder of those values as we view the flag flying above City Hall. We can feel honoured and fortunate to have this powerful symbol flying in our city," said John Furlong, Vancouver 2010 CEO. Furlong said later that the first interview he ever game in the process that led to this point was on the steps of Vancouver City Hall a decade ago.

Both Furlong and Sullivan received the most enthusiastic response from the crowd during the 40-minute ceremony.

Colin Hansen, the BC government minister responsible for the province's role in hosting the Olympics, said, "The 2010 Games are an incredible opportunity to celebrate and showcase British Columbia. Over the next four years and beyond, B.C. will be front and centre telling the world why our province is the best place to live, work, play and invest."

"It's been an incredible journey so far, made more special by the relationships we've forged and the partnerships we've strengthened," said Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed.

On March 9, Michaëlle Jean, the governor general of Canada, will dedicate the flag case in a separate ceremony. The flag will then be on display for the public through to the end of the Paralympic Winter Games that conclude in March, 2010.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1525
FRONT-RUNNERS SCORED FOR 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS FRANCHISE

GamesBids.com, of Richmond Hill, Ontario, has listed Salzburg, Austria, at the top of its first issue of its BidIndex for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games bid.

BidIndex is a system the company uses to score bids from cities hoping to host the Olympic Games. The company is not connected to the International Olympic Commitee (IOC), and the index is its own estimation, based on its own analysis of the bids, of the relative merits of the bids.

However, whichever city is chosen next year by the IOC will be a part of the 2010 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremonies, just as Vancouver was part of Torino's last Sunday, and will also be deeply involved in learning from Vancouver Games officials how to stage a Winter Olympics.

Rob Livingstone, producer of GamesBids.com, said Salzburg, Austria, surfaced with the top mark from the field of seven candidates by scoring 60.63, a mark indicating that the bid, he says, that "has great potential to win. During the 2010 campaign Salzburg scored as high as 66.82 before finally losing to Vancouver in the final election. National experience, solid venue plans, and several other factors powered Salzburg to positive results."

Sochi, in Russia, scored 56.71 and was number two on the list. Says Livingstone, "The bid team’s preparedness has resulted in a solid all-around plan that will be worthy of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) short list."

PyeongChang, South Korea, according to Livingstone, "was only two votes shy of securing the 2010 Games and they have a promising BidIndex score this time around at 55.72. They’ve improved some elements in their bid -- part of the region’s ongoing plan to develop winter sports and expand the general infrastructure."

Jaca, a 2010 bidder that missed the short list, is back again as Spain’s contender. Livingstone says its score of 50.57 was just above Jaca’s top score last time around and the bid is of similar quality, but transportation and a questionable venue layout will still be a challenge."

Sofia, Bulgaria scored 47.26, Almaty in Kazakhstan earned 40.98 and Borjomi of the former Soviet state of Georgia scored 30.38. "All scores off the mark showing that these bids will struggle to make the short list. Deficiencies such as lack of experience and adequate transportation infrastructures were among the reasons for poor results," says Livingstone.

The IOC is to chose the winner of the 2014 franchise in a vote on July 7, 2007.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1524

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

MTS ALLSTREAM SIGNS OLYMPIC MEDALIST CINDY KLASSEN TO SPONSORSHIP DEAL

Manitoba's telecommunications company has signed 26-year-old Cindy Klassen, the speedskater who won five medals at the Torino Winter Games and a bronze medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, to a marketing and sponsorship contract today that will help support her at least until the 2010 Winter Olympics. Pierre Blouin, CEO of MTS Allstream Inc, said Klassen was an "awe-inspiring athlete." The amount of the deal was not released. "It's one of the most lucrative deals ever established between an amateur athlete and a Canadian corporation," said Elliott Kerr, president of Toronto-based Landmark Sport Group, the agent which represents Klassen. Landmark Sport also represents Olympic gold medallist Clara Hughes of Winnipeg. MTS spokesman Michelle Bailey says. "We want to see Cindy continue to have the ability to train and compete. It's a natural fit. She's a Manitoban, and we are a Manitoba company." Klassen is to represent MTS at various events and participate in marketing campaigns, and will receive financial support for training and competition expenses in exchange. MTS is also paying her communications bills including wireless, TV, high-speed Internet, and long distance. Klassen, who also carried Canada's flag at the Closing Ceremonies Sunday in Torino is not expected back to Winnipeg until late next month. She is scheduled to compete March 3-5 in the World Cup in Heerenveen, Netherlands, and March 18-19 at the World Allround Championships in Calgary.

BC GOVERNMENT RELEASES LIST OF COMPANIES INVOLVED WITH BC/CANADA PLACE

Here are some of the companies, according to the BC government's 2010 Olympic Secretariat, that are or have provided services for BC/Canada Place at Torino; they're all from British Columbia. The building, which looks like a log cabin in the centre of the city, has proved to be quite popular with the public. It will continue in operation until the end of the 2006 Paralympic Games next month. The building was designed and built by Sitka Log Homes of 100 Mile House. The Pace Group, a Vancouver-based public-relations firm, whose principle, Norman Stowe, has had long ties with various provincial governments, provided the operations staff. Karyo Communications, also of Vancouver, looked after public relations and communications work for the building outside of Italy, but principal Patti Schom-Moffatt said the firm worked with unidentified international PR agency to do its work. Patrick Roberge Productions of Vancouver was the event producer for the building's official opening, and developed the pavilion's creative and programming plan. Culinary Capers provided the catering. The Lunny Group in Vancouver was given a contract to provide the exterior design features for BC-Canada Place, as well as the interior audio-visual show. Golder & Associates, which has offices in BC and Italy and which has received a number of contracts from VANOC, was the project manager for the construction the building.

CHINESE WINTER OLYMPIC OFFICIAL LOOKING TO
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS, LOTTERY FOR MORE SUPPORT

Reuters wire service is today reporting that the deputy leader of China's Winter Olympic team is looking into the possibility of accepting corporate sponsorship and setting up a sports lottery to generate addition funding for the team. The suggestion indicates that although Canada won 11 medals at the Torino Games, the Chinese government is finding it difficult to further expand its funding of the Winter team as it continues to focus on the development of the 2008 Summer Olympics. "Our athletes' performance in Turin will help us forge partnerships with more international and domestic companies," Xiao Tian is quoted in Beijing as saying, and that, "Company sponsorship and the sports lottery should be important financial sources for China's winter sports... It's impossible for China to devote itself fully to developing winter sports." He was paraphrased by Reuters as adding that economic development, geographical and climate restrictions limited the popularity of skiing, skating and other winter sports to the middle class of China's north.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2006

Monday, February 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1523

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

LENOVO, SAMSUNG, KODAK STILL UNDECIDED ABOUT 2010, MANULIFE TO PULL OUT

The vice president for Olympic sponsorship at Lenovo, the company that supplied thousands of desktop and laptop computers for the 2006 Winter Olympics, says it will only sign up for the 2010 Winter Olympics if it sees a large increase in name recognition as a result of the 2006 Torino Games. Philippe Davy told Bloomberg News that the company, now the third-biggest computer maker in the world after the Chinese-owned firm bought IBM's personal computer division, that "We are looking for a big increase, like a doubling of our brand awareness. I think we'll see the desired results." However, he added, "this won't be an emotional decision, but a hard fact-based business decision." Davy said the company brought 400 of its major customers to Torino to see its operations and attend competitions. Lenovo's current agreement to be an international sponsor of the Olympic Games expires with the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. Davy told reporter Gregory Viscusi that the company "evaluates name recognition in 12 countries every quarter." Coca-Cola, Atos Origin, General Electric, McDonald's and Visa International have signed on for the Olympiad that includes the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and the 2012 London Summer Games. Samsung Electronics, has not yet decided to extend its sponsorship to include the 2010 Games, but Kwon Gye Hyun, head of the company's sports marketing division, expects it will do so. Panasonic, Omega -- a division of Swatch Group -- and Eastman Kodak have not said whether they'll commit to 2010. Toronto-based Manulife Financial has confirmed it will not do so, according to Gerhard Heiberg, chairman of the International Olympic Committee's Marketing Commission.

SURREY MAYOR TO TALK ABOUT 2010 OPPORTUNITIES FOLLOWING TORINO TRIP

The mayor of Surrey, a municipality south of Vancouver, says she had several discussions with VANOC CEO John Furlong while she was in Torino as part of a delegation sent to entice national Olympic teams to train at the municipality's facilities. But Dianne Watts noted that Torino, which is somewhat smaller than Vancouver, had no hotel rooms available during the Games, and that people had to travel, just like the Prince George delegation that was doing the same thing, to Milan, about 100 kilometres away, to set up their operations. That, she suggests, means that Surrey could expect to benefit from the 2010 Games. Watts says her group was targeting hockey and skating teams, and showing off in particular, the South Surrey arena, whose size is almost that required for Olympics thought still adequate for training. She also hopes to entice some of the Paralympic Games teams to Surrey as well. And, she noted that Surrey can expect an extra 4,500 vehicles per day in the municipality during the 2010 Olympics. She says that her Mayor’s Task Force on 2010 is expected to be briefed and discuss the leads in the next few weeks.

VANCOUVER'S SECOND PUBLIC HEARING ON OLYMPIC VILLAGE LANDS SCHEDULED FOR MARCH 7

The City of Vancouver has scheduled a public hearing about the Southeast False Creek lands for 7:30 pm March 7, with city council present. The hearing is necessary to deal with changes the council made to the development of the area. The 2010 Winter Olympics Athletes Village is to be built on the site. The last time a public hearing was held about the property, council spent nearly all of two consecutive days hearing delegations who were opposed to what it wanted to do.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1522

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

COKE STARTS GOING BETTER WITH 2010
Coca-Cola has started its promotions program leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The company is an international sponsor of the 2010 Winter Games, and has exclusive rights to the soft-drink category at the 2010 Games. Jeff Kirkland, Coca-Cola Bottling Company's area vice-president for western Canada, says the firm will introduce a commemorative can in the region, available while supplies last, on Wednesday. The 'Celebrating the Beginning' Vancouver 2010 cans have a graphic of a downhill skier coasting down the trademark Coca-Cola wave, and it also carries a small white version of the 2010 Winter Olympics logo. Says Kirkland, "Coca-Cola Canada wanted to mark this significant occasion and help our western customers get into the Olympic spirit." The cans will be sold in 6-packs of Coca-Cola's "Classic" brand drinks and will be available primarily through grocery stores, big-box stores and drugstores. The cans are being produced by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company division in Vancouver. "This is our way of capturing the Olympic pride and excitement felt throughout the country," adds Kirkland.

SOME CANADIAN OLYMPIC TEAM CLOTHING TO BE RESTRICTED TO ATHLETES

HBC, VANOC's retailing sponsor, says the jacket, pants and top worn by the Canadian Olympic team when it took part in the 2006 Torino Closing Ceremonies yesterday will not be available for sale at the firm's Olympic boutiques that are in its chains of stores. HBC president George Heller says those particular clothing items will be restricted to those who received them, primarily the athletes. However, other parts of the team's clothing are available for sale. In addition to outfitting the Olympic teams between now and 2010, HBC has also arranged to outfit the estimated 28,000 volunteers that are expected to be needed for the 2010 Winter Games.

KOIVU OFFERS ADVICE TO 2010 ORGANIZERS

The captain of Finland's Olympic men's hockey team at the Torino Olympics, Saku Koivu, who was elected as one of two athlete's representatives to the International Olympic Committee last week, has some advice for the organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Koivu's team won the silver medal in the final game on the weekend. Koivu, who plays for the Montreal Canadiens's National Hockey League team, says that Finland's difficult Olympic schedule, fatigue and a relative lack of depth was part of the reason for the loss. He noted that the NHL players had little rest before the Olympic tournament, in which Finland played eight games in 12 days. "You spend lifetime getting into the Olympics," Koivu says, "You wish you were healthy, and rested. But that's not the case with hockey players. I hope the guys who decide the schedule for Vancouver will be more careful." A number of NHL players have said they would prefer a longer break before the Olympic tournament. The NHL, its players' association, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the IOC are the groups involved in deciding the length of the breaks and the playing schedules of men's ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1521

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

VANOC THEMED WELCOME SIGNS INSTALLED AT VANCOUVER'S EDGES

New "Welcome to Vancouver" signs that are themed to the colours of the 2010 Winter Olympics have been installed at five major entrances to the City of Vancouver. The blue-green colour palette of the signs coordinate with the VANOC street banners and the overall look in which the city and venues will be decorated for the 2010 Winter Games. They were created by the fabrication shop of the City of Vancouver's Engineering Department. The signs are made of steel and measure approximately 3.6 metres by 1.8 metres (12' x 6'). In keeping with the theme of environmental sustainability of the 2010 Games, the bases of the signs are made of granite salvaged from old curbs around the city. The granite dates back almost 100 years to a time when curbs were still made of granite rather than the concrete used today. The new welcome signs replace ones that were installed for Expo '86 and the City's 1986 centennial.

VANOC RESETS ALL VENUES COMPLETED DATE TO 2008

The message from VANOC has quietly changed. For the last couple of years, the mantra of its executives was that the major venues would be finished by 2007. During the Torino Olympics, several months after the City of Richmond reported its speedskating oval complex wouldn't be finished until a year after first planned, VANOC officials began saying that they hope to have the major venues completed by 2008. The Whistler Nordic and Sliding Centres, as well as the Cypress Bowl snowboarding venue, are all expected to finish by about November 2007, however, the curling venue and the Olympic Villages in both Vancouver and Whistler have always been planned to be completed by the summer of 2009.

JAPAN TO SHRINK 2010 TEAM DELEGATION

The head of Japan's Winter Olympics team, Kenichi Chizuka, today apologized to his country for the fact that his team won only one medal, the one won in women’s figure skating by Shizuka Arakawa. Chizuka, who had hoped for perhaps five, and certainly more than the two the country won in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, promised that for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, he would send a smaller, more focused team. Normally, the Japanese contingent sends about 100 athletes and about that many coaches and other support staff. Chizuka did not say, however, on which sports the 2010 team would focus, nor outline the size of the 2010 delegation.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1520

Here are three moguls we ran into today:
AUSSIES DOUBLE EXPECTATIONS FOR 2010

The president of the Australian Olympic Committee, Ian Chesterman, has doubled his organization's official prediction of the number of medals its team members will get at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Officials thought they might get one medal at the 2006 Winter Games, but the reset the minimum to two after Canadian-born moguls skier Dale Begg-Smith won gold and a bronze medal went to aerial skier Alisa Camplin. Chesterman said the team intended to target snowboarding, freestyle aerials and moguls skiing for medal performances by its athletes. And, it says, it will introduce speed skating and figure skating at the Youth Olympics Festival, which until now has been for summer sports, scheduled to be held in Sydney in 2007.

RAI PROFFERS OLYMPIC VIEWERSHIP STATS

RAI, the Italian television network, which is, so far, the only European TV network that has not yet signed up to broadcast the 2010 Winter Games, is the first off the mark to talk about how well it did during the Olympic Games in Torino: From February 10 to 27, RAI offered almost 200 hours of broadcast time, with an average 2.5 million viewers. That translates into a 17.53% share, on average. But, it says, it also had peaks of up to 11 million viewers. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has not yet released its equivalent figures, but there have been ad-industry discussions about the fact that CBC was having trouble reaching its forecast audience numbers and was offering make-good ads to some sponsors, such as Bell Canada. Bell, however, already felt it had saturation on the 2006 Games broadcast and indicates it will likely agree to make-goods in the future, likely with CBC hockey games.

ZEBRA CAMS AND STREAKER JUSTICE

From our Winki Blinki Department: Gizmos we liked the best during the presentation of the Torino Games: The Jump-cam that follows ski jumpers off their platform and into midair; the Zebra Cam - the hockey referees had them, finally confirming the refs aren't watching the same game we are; the virtual flags that appeared in the ice of the speedskaters. And, if you're wondering if justice was served following two obvious breaches of security at the Games, you be the judge. The German who took a gamble -- and lost -- that he could promote a specific on-line casino when he suddenly appeared at the elbow of the president of the Torino Olympic Games during a speech at the closing ceremony last night, the same man who momentarily grabbed the podium microphone before being tackled by security forces, is expected to be charged in Italy and may soon be facing sharks who think they're cards, but the streaker who suddenly appeared at a curling contest was simply and quickly escorted off the premises and tossed into Torino's -2 temperatures... without his clothes.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1519
RICHMOND OFFERS 7.5 ACRES FOR PROPOSALS OF RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL LAND DEVELOPMENT ADJACENT TO 2010 SPEEDSKATING OVAL

The City of Richmond has put up for auction seven properties near the new 2010 Olympics Speedskating Oval to help pay for the development of the C$178 million sports complex.

Richmond is looking for formal proposals for the properties, totalling 7.5 hectares (18.6 acres), to be bought and developed. The land is on the Fraser River near the Vancouver International Airport.

The City has prepared a comprehensive plan for the lands, which are intended to be developed in a mix of high density residential and commercial use, and they say they'll negotiate with the successful proponents the specific development plans, and the terms attached to them.

City planners want to create:

An urban neighbourhood that they hope to promote as "a model of sustainable planning, world class design, and green building construction."

A mix of uses, including the post-Olympic legacy use of the Oval, that they hope will add to the projecting becoming "a major destination attraction."

Richmond says it's possible for proponents to submit proposals for individual parcels, or for any combination of parcels. The land has not yet been subdivided, they note, "so there is flexibility to revise the parcel plan based on the proposals received."

Richmond planners suggest this is also an opportunity to participate in creating a new riverfront residential community.

The proposals are due May 11; the City is not handling the RFP process directly; see below for contact information.

BACKGROUND

Here are the parcels:

Riverfront Residential and Commercial Development Sites in Richmond, BC:
Parcel Land Area Use Tenure Floorspace Potential
1 10,043m2 - High Density Residential Sale 30,129 m2
2 21,247m2 - High Density Residential Sale 63,741 m2
3 19,110m2 - High Density Residential Sale 57,330 m2
4 10,253m2 - Hotel or Mixed Use Sale or Lease 30,759 m2
5 5,257m2 - Commercial Lease 15,771 m2
6 2,957m2 - Commercial Lease 2,323 m2
7A 6,417m2 - High Density Residential Sale 19,251 m2

RESOURCES

Request for Proposals (RFP) packages and other informaiton are available from
Nicole Olenick
Coriolis Consulting Corp.
1505 – 1130 West Pender Street,
Vancouver, BC V6E 4A4
Phone: (+1) 604.682.9714
Fax: (+1) 604-682-4193
Email: nolenick@coriolis.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1518

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

SOME 2010 SPONSORS READY WITH OLYMPICS FOLLOW-UP ADS, BUT NOT ALL

A few, but certainly not all, of the Olympic sponsors were ready with ads in the major newspapers of Vancouver the day after the flag was handed to the city, when there were dozens of pages of reports wrapping up the 2010 Games and reporting on Vancouver and Whistler countdown celebrations. Visa, the credit card company, which is also an international IOC sponsor and which continuously proves itself as one of the most competent firms at planning its marketing and implementation around the Olympics, had two quarter-page ads in Monday's papers. One focused on the six specific winter athletes it sponsors between Olympic Games, with the message that Visa supports them between the Games. The other focused specifically on the Lueders/Brown silver medal in men's two-man bobsleigh race. RBC, a major sponsor of VANOC, ran a half page island ad that carried the VANOC/RBC combination logo but was solely concerned about selling a popular but seasonal Canadian consumer tax shelter, known as an RRSP. Bell Canada, VANOC's largest sponsor, used their Olympics-themed cartoon beavers, Frank and Gordon, in a half-island to switch gears, with the headline "Yesterday Turin, Tomorrow Vancouver." The ad firmly focused on Bell's connections to the 2010 Games, and even got in a note about the "Own the Podium" program, to which it also contributes significantly, but it had no contact information in it. It's general theme was about teamwork. General Motors, another major VANOC sponsor, took a full page to link the success of Canada's athletes at the Torino Games with the potential of Vancouver and Whistler, offering "home advantage." It also used its VANOC/GM logo to further connect it and all the logos of its various divisions. On the other hand, this ad appeared on A6 of the Vancouver Sun newspaper, but on page A3 was a half page ad for one of GM's divisions, Cadillac, which only offered to sell cars, and made no connection with the Games or VANOC, not even a logo appearance. Whistler-Blackcomb Resorts, a venue, not a sponsor, used a photo of people in the shape of 2010 to illustrate an ad for getting people onto is mountains. Missing completely: IOC sponsors that will be at the 2010 Games, such as Coca-Cola, Atos Origin (the computer networking giant), General Electric, McDonald's, Omega (Swatch's brand), HBC (VANOC's retail sponsor), Petro-Canada (VANOC's gasoline sponsor) and Rona, VANOC's renovations sponsor. VANOC itself took out full page colour ads to congratulate the Canadian Olympic team, and thank VANOC's sponsors. The only contact information in the ad was its website. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which has marketing rights until 2008, took out a full page black-and-white ad to also congratulate the Canadian athletes, list all of its outlets and to thank its sponsors, and give a small push to the Paralympic Games broadcasts, which start March 11.

FURLONG RECORDS VIDEO TESTIMONIAL FOR SPONSOR

Bell Canada, has begun running a two-minute testimonial video featuring VANOC CEO John Furlong in a studio interview format with clips of various winter sports taking place behind him. The testimonial is undated but appears to have been recorded earlier this month; it's now featured on Bell's home page. A sample quote is about the sponsorship arrangement between Bell and VANOC: "From the very second this partnership got going, we were filled with confidence that this was a company we could trust, that they were reliable, that they would deliver and that they would get this project over the finish line the way they promised. And the country would celebrate that, and this would be an extraordinarily positive thing. And we think that they're living up to that every minute, and will, all the way to the execution of the Games in 2010."

LESSONS LEARNED IN MARKETING FROM TORINO GAMES

Marketing tips from various interviews and discussions following the Torino Winter Games: Young people love snowboarding, and so do sponsors that get the concept that those who watch it also like video games, edgy recording artists and snack food. "Extreme athletes have been talking directly to the kid who's picking up a skateboard," said Matthew Lalin, executive vice president of Steiner Sports, a New Rochelle, N.Y., sports marketing firm, the Los Angeles Times. "Now they're starting to talk to the rest of the household." Women love figure skating. "If we want to reach a female audience, nothing delivers better than the figure skating," said Mike Lynch, senior vice president of event and sponsorship marketing for Visa USA. He also says, "The snowboard cross in particular has really broken out and proved itself as the most exciting thing to have happened in the Olympic Games in the past 20 years." Competitions,TV events and live performances give figure skaters "an edge in terms of marketability," said Bob Dorfman, executive creative director at Pickett Advertising in San Francisco. To attract sponsors, "The athlete has to perform, has to have personality and has to attain visibility," says Stephen Greyser, a Harvard professor who studies sports marketing. Most interesting observation came from Paul Farhi, a reporter for the Washington Post: Not a single snowboarder was caught doping.

RESOURCES

Furlong's testimonial for Bell:

Text:
www.bell.ca/shop/SmeSol_Testimonial_item1.page

Windows Media format, low quality, (11 megs):
www.bell.ca/media/en/all_regions/smb/vanoc.wmv

AVI format, high quality, (40 megs):
www.bell.ca/media/en/all_regions/smb/vanoc.avi

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 27, 2006

Friday, February 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1517
COMMUNICATION STUDIES RESEARCHER SUGGESTS WINTER OLYMPIC MEN TREATED MUCH DIFFERENTLY THAN WOMEN BY TV BROADCASTERS

A Communication Studies professor in South Carolina says men and women Winter Olympic athletes are treated quite differently by TV anchors and reporters covering the Games for NBC. For one thing, men's sports received almost seven hours more coverage than women's events.

Dr. Andrew C. Billings is an associate professor, director of graduate studies and interim director of the Pearce Center for Professional Communication. He researches how gender, race and nationality are portrayed by broadcasters during the Olympic Games. Billings, who has has been studying Olympic broadcast commentary since the mid '90's, focuses his studies on sports communication and his research interests lie in the intersection of gender, ethnicity and nationality within televised sport.

Billings says there's no other television sports event like an Olympic telecast, because it represents "a mix of nationalism, internationalism, sport and human drama unmatched by any other event; the portrayal of gender, ethnicity and nationality is of particular importance when 203 million Americans may be witnessing a biased view of world athletic accomplishment."

Billings' research shows that when men win a gold medal, NBC broadcasters will speak of their strength and composure, but when women win gold, they talk about the athlete's experience, composure -- or even luck. His research from the 2002 Winter Olympics showed that female athletes were more likely than male athletes to be characterized by announcers as failing because they lacked experience.

In his previous Olympic studies, Billings found that Americans were more likely than non-Americans to be depicted as excelling because of their concentration, commitment and superior courage. Conversely, non-Americans were more likely than Americans to do well because they possessed more experience. In addition, American athletes were more likely than non-Americans to receive praise from broadcast commentators.

Billings says he expects to start writing his first book this fall, tentatively titled, The Biggest Show on Television: On the Screens and Behind the Scenes with NBC's Olympic Telecast. He says he intends to discuss the findings from his content analyses in Olympic research in much more depth, and the book is to also feature interviews with NBC employees, including interviews with Olympic anchor Bob Costas and several on-site NBC Olympic reporters. The Constas interview is scheduled to occur when the broadcaster returns from the Games in Torino.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1516

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER OFFERS OLYMPIC VILLAGE DENSIFICATION TENDER

The City of Vancouver has issued tender documents for companies interested in densification of the land along the southeastern part of False Creek where buildings for the 2010 Olympic Village are to be constructed. The process of densification compresses the soils, allowing for considerably less settling and shifting once the buildings are constructed. The work is to take place between Ontario and Columbia streets along the False Creek foreshore. The timing of the job is similar to that of the backfill tender offer the City issued yesterday; the tender window closes March 1. The work is to start in April and end in June. The City, which is in charge of building the Village, using money from VANOC, wants the densification to take place starting on the east side of the project and moving west, to fit in with the backfill contract. Work in the western densification zone is to begin on the western edge and move towards the small inlet that is to be the focal point of the Village. The City estimates 2,350 columns of eight metres each would be necessary for the job. City engineers say excavation and construction of roads and utilities near the inlet which will begin in April, and that sheet piling along the future western and southern edges of the inlet is to begin once the densification is complete.

HOCKEY TALKS ABOUT 2010 NHL ARRANGEMENTS BEGIN

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says talks with the International Ice Hockey Federation's Rene Fasel and the International Olympic Committee's president, Jacques Rogge have begun, but not yet completed, about how the NHL might participate in the 2010 Winter Olympics. The meetings come amid word that quite a few NHL team owners were unhappy about the format of the Games this year, which was heavier than that of the 2002 Salt Lake Games. All three groups are committed to NHL player attendance at the Vancouver Games and Bettman told Canadian Press the length of the 15-day NHL Olympic break length is not up for discussion, but there's a trade-off, with economics at its heart, about game scheduling in the round-robin portion of the 2010 Games might work. From the NHL's point of view, there were too many games in the round-robin series this year, which made for tired teams and increased injuries, and there was too much access by European hockey teams to NHL players, and not enough communication with NHL team officials about what was taking place. In a nutshell, it's economically better for the IIHF and the IOC if there are more games and better access, and it's economically better for the NHL is there are less games and less access. Bettman says he expects that once the current NHL season is finished, talks would resume this summer about how the 2010 ice-hockey games might work.

KAMLOOPS GETS OLYMPIC-RELATED GRANT FOR AMPHITHEATER, FALCONRY EXHIBIT IN WILDLIFE PARK

The BC government has sent the second installment, of C$110,000, to help pay for a 600-seat amphitheater in the BC Wildlife Park near Kamloops, in central BC. The money is from the government's Olympic/Paralympic Live Sites program, a offspring of the province's portion of the bid to hose the 2010 Winter Olympics. A third cheque, for the same amount, is due to be sent in June. The money is to also help pay for a 125-square-metre falconry exhibit.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1515
AMERICAN NATIONAL PAPER OFFERS TIPS ON BOOSTING YOUTH INTEREST IN WINTER OLYMPICS

USA Today has published a list of 10 tips it received from marketing experts it contacted after learning that American TV viewership on NBC of the 2006 Winter Olympics was down 25% from the Nagano, Japan, Winter Olympics in 1998, and off 32% from the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. NBC's head of Olympics broadcasting for the network, Dick Ebersol, says NBC made a small profit of between US$5 million and US$6 million on one component, its website NBCOlympics.com, but says that interest in the Olympics is down in the same manner as interest in other major sporting events is down in comparative years.

In any event, the tips, as USA Today reporters Bruce Horovitz and Laura Petrecca wrote them:

Mimic reality TV. In a world of blogs and risque reality shows, people crave nitty-gritty details. "They should have athlete confessional rooms" where Olympians privately vent their inner-most thoughts to the camera, says David Adler, founder of BiZbash Media, which produces an events trade website and magazine. Athletes could be fitted with minicams on their eyeglasses and microphones that they wear 24/7, so viewers can see what's going on during the competitions, as well as at practices, parties and team meetings. The content could be streamed to hot Gen Y websites such as Myspace.com, Adler says. By focusing cameras on a handful of diverse athletes before and during the games, "you could have a few ongoing reality shows within the Olympic broadcast," says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

Give viewers a voice: Viewer voting on televised competitions such as "American Idol" has given rise to new phenomena - official judges might get the last word, but they're no longer the only voice. Text messaging and online voting has changed all that. Even if viewers don't decide who wins Olympic medals, many would welcome the chance to weigh in on Olympic events and personalities. "Young viewers need to feel like they're involved in their programming," says Catherine Mullen, general manager of TV network Fuse. She suggests NBC or the International Olympic Committee create an online venue where teens could post messages on topics such as which athletes would make the best-looking Olympic couple.

Tap into tech: Rather than banking on the younger set watching TV, Olympic organizers need to make more effort to also distribute content through other mediums. Think podcasting, streaming video, text messaging, even ring tones that have Olympians saying cool phrases, says Mullen. She also suggests tying in with video game makers to create Olympic content that kids can play online or on their cell phones while the sport is occurring. [Morgan:News:2010 note: The IOC commissioned a winter-sport video game and a cell-phone game, both of which were universally panned by critics as boring compared with other state-of-the-art games, and snowboarding video games have existed for several years.]

- Make real time real: To interest teens and tweens who spend their time online, NBC should stream all Olympic video live -- and charge an access fee, says Sreenath Sreenivasan, an on-line media professor at Columbia University. While this might cut into prime-time viewing, NBC could make up lost revenue with the right fee structure, he says. Viewers could buy an Olympic package for "a couple hundred dollars," or NBC could sell viewing rights for individual sports or athletes. Another revenue generator: Sell real-time access to events through cell-phone viewing, he says. [Morgan:News:2010 note: Aspects of cell phone access appeared in a number of countries during the Torino Winter Games including Canada, via host-broadcaster or telecom deals with the IOC or broadcaster sponsors.]

Focus on failures. Young audiences love to watch failure, says Alissa Quart, author of teen marketing book "Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers." "Teens feel a lot of resentment towards extremely talented people and like to know that they fail, too," she says. "Forget winning. If someone wins, that's a bonus," says marketing expert Steve Stoute. "They have to tell the back story the way they do on reality shows, so you have a feel for the characters."

Increase head-to-head competition. Gold, silver and bronze medals in timed events could be decided by a single race pitting the three finalists with the best times, says Visa's Lynch. "The less done by the clock the better."

Mix genders. How about some relay events that mix men and women in the same race, says Andrew Woolf, co-owner of World Class Sports, a sport marketer.

Flaunt fashion. A big turn-off for younger viewers is apparel worn by Olympians, says Quart. "Adolescents want to watch people wearing name brands," such as Donna Karan, she says. Instead of relying on athletic-apparel makers for team outfits, she says, "bring in the fashion firepower."

Add hip music. The Olympics needs to make its tunes up-tempo, and incorporate diverse genres of music into events far beyond figure skating, suggests Carol Moog, a consumer psychologist and blues harmonica player. "It should look more like a music video," she says. For events such as snowboarding, she says, Gen Y-favoured music should replace TV commentary.

Replace the commentators. No self-respecting teenager wants to hear someone their parents' age telling them about snowboarding, says Paine. "Instead of someone translating snowboard-ese into English, you need someone who actually speaks snowboard-ese."

Drop all age limits. Each Olympic sport has a different age limit - it's 15 (by June 30, of the year before a Winter Olympics) for figure skating. Young viewers might tune in if more competitors were their age, says Woolf.

Build up rivalries. Any sporting event without big rivalries is boring - especially the Olympic Games, says Lynch, of Visa. Think back to the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" when the U.S. hockey team beat the Russians. But who knew, he asks, that the Austrian ski team is the U.S ski team's biggest rival in Torino this year? "We could do a much better job building up the rivalries," he says.

Go back to the old schedule. Sponsor pressure nudged organizers to reschedule the Olympic Games from every four years to separating the Winter Games and Summer Games two years apart beginning in 1994 with the Lillehammer Winter Games. "It's created Olympic fatigue," says management consultant Pam Murtaugh. "It was a pinnacle experience that has been diluted by its frequency."

Break up the TV monopoly. "What would happen if different networks or media could buy the right to cover events or groups of events?" asks Don Dorsey, president of Dorsey Productions, which has produced Disneyland's Main Street parade. "This would present enormous logistical and economic problems, but would allow the public to vote with ratings."

Reinvent the Olympic Village. With its global appeal and throngs of young, hormonally charged athletes, the Olympic Village might be ripe for an uber-cool transformation. It just needs extra attention -- and maybe a few gimmicks. "Set up hidden cameras in the Olympic Village to catch any late-night fraternizing between Olympians," says Chris Allen, media director at ad agency GSD&M. Greg Lane, the agency's director of media production, suggests staging live concerts with marquee music groups at the village.

Keep viewers on edge. "Unpredictability and surprises really can work to your advantage," says Don Mischer, producer of the Atlanta and Salt Lake City Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the 2006 Super Bowl half-time show. For the Atlanta Games, Mischer and a handful of people kept the last torch carrier a secret -- and awed the crowd when Muhammad Ali came out.

Bring in star power: "There should be celebs in the front row, like at NBA games," says Joyce King Thomas, chief creative officer at ad firm McCann Erickson. "Brad (Pitt) and Angelina (Jolie) would add more than a little sex appeal."

Add more extreme events: Olympic organizers could rip a page from ESPN's extremely lucrative X Games -- adding a slate of grittier, heart-pumping events. For the Winter Olympics, organizers should consider adding an a snowboarding competition that includes a terrain park with jumps and sliding rails, says Ron Semiao, creator of ESPN's X Games. For the Summer Olympics, he suggests adding skateboarding, bicycle motocross and motorized sports.

Diversify the Winter Games. The Winter Games attract far fewer African-American, Latino and Asian athletes than do the Summer Games. Team USA did have a Winter Olympics-record of 21 minority athletes in Torino out of 211 total. But with so many white American athletes at the Winter Games, there's less interest from minorities, says Wania Cheng, president of Asia Link Consulting Group. "People identify with people who are like themselves."

Revisit the mission. "Is it about athletic competition at the highest level, or is it about generating revenue?" asks David Carter of Sports Business Group, a consulting firm. Like other big-time sports, the Olympics has become "addicted to the corporate dollar," he says. As a result, more critical decisions are made by the network and sponsors, not athletes or organizers.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1514

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BC FOCUSES ON EXPANDING WOOD TRADE WHILE IN ITALY

BC premier Gordon Campbell, who is in Torino at the moment, was the keynote speaker at another event hosted at BC/Canada Place today. About 100 representatives of the Italian construction industry attended a presentation on improving European awareness of the benefits of BC wood construction. Presented by BC Wood, the workshop is being attended by members of the Prince George delegation to the Torino Olympics because of the importance of this issue to the northern BC economy, but also by architects, engineers and other-related construction firms. One of the presenters was Walter Bramsleven, the general manager of Sitka Log Homes, a company based in BC's town of 100 Mile House and which was contracted by the BC government to design and build the building. According to Rob van Adrichem, a spokesman for the Prince George delegation, the workshop with architects and construction officials was aimed at further strengthening a growing movement in Europe to showcase natural materials in home and commercial construction. "In fact,", van Adrichem says, "the first presentation at the conference was from a European organization dedicated to the use of biologically sustainable building materials. The presentation highlighted the benefits of wood construction from cultural, aesthetic, and historical perspectives. It's a common attitude in places like BC, but traditionally uncommon in Italy and many other European countries, says Bramsleven, because of a prevailing belief that concrete and glass are synonymous with modern architecture."

PG DELEGATION EXPANDS BEYOND OLYMPICS IN ITALY

On their first two days in Italy, members of the Prince George delegation met with representatives the Canadian consulate, including the Consul-General, the president of the Torino Chamber of Commerce, and representatives of Tourism Torino and the Piemonte region, which is where TOROC has its mountain venues. As well, they also met up with a former resident of Prince George, Gerry Peckham, who is now an official with the Canadian Curling Association. Peckham is in Torino with the national teams and met with Prince George's Leisure Services Director Tom Madden to discuss training opportunities in the city. Prince George has also set up a website designed to appeal to organizations interested in using the city's training facilities.

PG MAYOR PINS TOURISTS

There are still line-ups by tourists and Torinoistas who want to have a look at BC/Canada Place -- an estimated 50,000 people have toured the facility so far. When Prince George mayor Colin Kinsley was have a look around the building in preparation for the north-central BC city's event, he went outside before it opened to talk to people in the line-up. In the process, he handed out Prince George pins -- Olympic-related pins are a currency during an Olympic Games -- to what one observer called "the rabid Olympic pin collectors."

RESOURCES

BC Wood's website:
www.bcwood.com

Train In Prince George website:
www.TrainInPG.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1513

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC'S VERSION OF LIVE AND LEARN

VANOC had about 80 people watching the back-of-house operations of the Torino Winter Games, and while they probably learned a great deal, particularly about the potential of what they're embarking on, they've only talked a bit about it and only then in "best that we can be" generalities. Here are a few of the nuts-and-bolts items they've mentioned. The large empty gaps in the seats was due to an overabundance of tickets being purchased, handed out as promotion or provided as part of a sponsorship deal to a wide range of "the Olympic Family" and which go largely unused. The seats, in one way or another, are paid, but it makes for an image of the Games on television -- the key fundraiser for the Olympic industry -- as one in which people don't care to show up. Spectator comfort at Olympic Games must be as much of a priority as it is for the care-and-feeding of athletes. The spectators’ Olympic experience, from the moment they buy their ticket to the moment they arrive home from the event, say organizers, should be a seamless and highly enjoyable experience. Torino 2006 faced a few of the same transportation challenges that Vancouver 2010 will face with mountain and city venues organized in clusters. In Vancouver's case, the venues are readily reached by good road, but those roads are at or near capacity during the times the Games will be in operation. VANOC will have hundreds busses on hand, based at the Vancouver Olympic Village near the Cambie Bridge to transport athletes, coaches and other members of the Olympic Family between venues and the Village, but spectator transportation is also going to be important, because buses, even with dedicated lanes, have to use the same traffic bottlenecks, primarily bridges, as the rest of the population and spectators. In Whistler, all the venues are close to each other, but far enough apart to need quite a bit of bus transportation, where the Torino Games mountain venues were spread out and connected by narrow winding roads. Organizers say transportation is a critical area that requires early planning "and a co-ordinated approach from multiple entities who can ensure a simple, safe, reliable, user friendly system." They also note that "Well informed and trained transportation staff and volunteers are essential to the success of the transportation infrastructure." And, if it wasn't clear to everybody before the went to the Games, it is now: A well-run volunteer program, with time and money spent on training, can dramatically strengthen the Olympic experience for everybody from VANOC's CEO to the spectators. The same goes for having sponsors that are creative or innovative in how they work with spectators on the venue sites. The same also goes for running as many simulations or rehearsals as possible for all aspects of the operations, and that implies having the venues -- all of them -- completed on time. That's going to be a significant challenge for the Vancouver and Prince George Olympic villages, as well as the new curling venue in Vancouver, and while still expected to be finished a year before the 2010 Games start, the completion date of the Richmond speedskating oval has slipped one year from the original plan. VANOC's senior vice-president of Sport, Cathy Priestner, says Torino had a lot of trouble making what she called "world-class ice" and it will be something to which she'll pay quite of bit of attention during the 2010 planning and testing. Meanwhile, 25 VANOC employees intend to be at the Paralympic Winter Games in Torino, which start next month, and 16 VANOC staffers have been seconded to work for the Torino Organizing Committee.

BC OLYMPIC SECRETARIAT TO PROVIDE SHORT VIDEOS IN TORINO FOR TOURISM

A series of short videos, about two or three minutes long, that focus on an tourism-related aspect of British Columbia, will be provided by the BC government's 2010 Secretariat to news media around the world during Sunday's closing ceremony at Torino's Winter Games. The idea is to use the interest by them in the hand-off of the Games to Vancouver as marketing for the province's tourism. The videos will also be accompanied by other BC promotional material. For instance, one of the videos uses Horne Lake Caves Provincial Park as a hook to talk about tourism in the middle of Vancouver Island. The Oceanside Tourism Association, which oversees tourism in the area, says it intends to further distribute the video, as well as screen it Sunday at the Community and Conference Centre in Parksville, a small town on the east coast of the Island, on equipment purchased from funds provided by the BC government grants programs connected to BC's involvement in the 2010 Games.

OLYMPIC FIRST AID PONDERS VANOC DEADLINE

It appears that a small BC business intends to try to challenge VANOC's claim of copyright infringement in the courts over the business's name: Olympic First Aid. VANOC has given the firm until March 1 to change its name or face court action. A fundraiser has been scheduled for Saturday to help the firm with the expenses of the challenge.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1512
PRINCE GEORGE ATTRACTS OLYMPIC COMMITTEE REPS FROM SEVERAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The delegation that went from Prince George, in north-central BC, to Torino, Italy, to market the city as a place for national teams to consider for the practices in the run-up to the 2010 Winter Games had a productive day yesterday.

Delegation spokesman Rob Van Adrichem said that about 150 people, "including many of the movers and shakers in the Canadian Olympic movement" -- were at the planned reception hosted by Prince George at BC/Canada Place in downtown Torino, which involved organized support by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) and the BC government

Van Adrichem says, "Attendees included BC premier Gordon Campbell, VANOC President and CEO John Furlong, VANOC Chair Jack Poole, local freestyle skier Chris Wong, gold medallists Wolfgang and Andreas Linger of Austria... a former FIAT executive [who is the] current Torino Chamber of Commerce president, and media from around the world."

More to the point, attendees also included representatives of the Olympic committees from Switzerland, Slovakia, Croatia, Italy and Ireland. "The sports represented included curling, speedskating, biathlon, hockey, luge, and skeleton. The number of attendees exceeded expectations and represented an A-list of sport and government officials from around the world," he added.

Mayor Colin Kinsley gave "a spirited presentation about the city," followed by a new video of northern BC that was played to a soundtrack written and performed by Jenny Lester of Smithers.

Premier Gordon Campbell spoke about Prince George's methods of showing how the benefits of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games could expand outward from the southwest coast to the entire Province. He also identified the new Northern Sport Centre as "a facility that will help to attract athletes to train in advance of 2010."

Prince George has also attracted the interest of the provincial, national, and international media that included: Television Suisse, SBS6 Netherlands, HRT Croatia, British Broadcasting Corporation, NBC -- the American broadcaster with the rights to the 2010 Games -- The Province and Vancouver Sun newspapers from Vancouver, CBC -- the current Canadian broadcaster of Olympic Games until 2008, CTV -- the Canadian broadcaster with the rights to the 2010 Games -- and Canada's Global National television network news.

On the marketing side, the daily newspaper published as a marketing device for BC/Canada Place features a story on BC universities that highlights Prince George's University of Northern BC. And Vicki Gabereau, a well-known western Canadian television performer who has been hired by the BC government to do public relations work for BC/Canada Place, wrote an article on Prince George's activity for the Olympic Secretariat's own promotional activities.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2006

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1511

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

WHISTLER-BLACKCOMB POWER STATION SHELVED

Whistler-Blackcomb has indicated that a small generating station that would have produced enough electrical power to offset the resort company's operations, and allow it to market the company's "sustainability" to the world during the media's focus surrounding 2010 Olympics Games, is being postponed indefinitely. Arthur DeJong, Whistler Blackcomb’s mountain planning and environmental manager, says the original estimate of about C$13 million for the six-megawatt project on Fitzsimmons Creek, adjacent to VANOC's Whistler Sliding Centre, is estimated to cost C$18 million if built in BC's hot capital-projects construction climate these days. Whistler-Blackcomb had been hoping VANOC would be a sponsor of the project, but the Committee's own capital-cost inflation problems prevent that from happening. The company has an easement agreement with VANOC to allow the company to put a 4.6-foot-wide penstock pipe beside the Sliding Centre's track. The pipe would transport water from a reservoir at the top to the power station at the bottom, if the project should go ahead in the future.

INTERNET, CELL PHONES SEEN AS SAPPING TV AUDIENCE FROM WINTER GAMES

Dr. Robert Bellamy, an Associate Professor of Media Communication at Duquesne University in Iowa, suggests that one of the reasons NBC may be having a tough time with its Olympic coverage competing against reality shows is because there are other ways for spectators to see coverage without awaiting prime-time coverage. He suggets that fans can find results on the Internet or look up results on their cell phones before the games even air on television. "Sports only work well if they are live," Bellamy says, noting that the time difference between North America and Italy meant most of the games were being aired by NBC on a delayed broadcast. CBC has also been running same-day tapes for the same reason, but has also been broadcasting the Games live, even though its in the early morning for much of the country. He also noted that there have also been problems with the broadcasters in having "characters" emerge from the pack of athletes, and that the failure to develop that kind of personality has been a failure for these games.

CANADA AM TO BROADCAST FROM WHISTLER

CTV, the 2010 Olympics host broadcaster, will be broadcasting live from Whistler during its morning show, Canada AM, at the same time as the Closing Ceremonies of the Torino Winter Olympics are occurring. The CTV broadcast will start at 3:30 am local time and feature a "Fire and Ice" presentation, as well as live bands. Local businesses are also being asked to take part in a contest to see which firm can sell the most tickets to the broadcast, with some promotion of the top firm's name during the broadcast. During the eight minutes when the Olympic flag is handed over to the next host nation, be to live shots of Vancouver and Whistler Village. Over the last two weeks broadcast networks from across Canada and the U.S. have been reporting on Vancouver-Whistler’s progress on the road to 2010. In addition, Tourism Whistler, Tourism British Columbia and Tourism Vancouver have been working on hosing a large group of international travel media in Vancouver and Whistler to watch Torino’s closing ceremonies.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1510

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

VANOC COUNDOWN CLOCK TO TICK

A countdown clock in Vancouver will begin marking off the 1,447 days, by VANOC's count, until the Canadian Olympics, and VANOC has planned an event featuring sports demonstrations, face painting and kiosks selling Italian and Canadian cuisine. The handover will be followed by live performances by Latin band Orquesta Goma Dura and jazz and soul band Sekoy, a group nominated for a Juno and are winners of a Canadian Independent Music Award. In Whistler, Simple Plan will play on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday, Juno Award-winner Shona Le Mottée, her band and the Eire Born Irish Dancers will be part of the special closing ceremonies. The Olympic flag will be raised at Vancouver City Hall on Tuesday.

JOHNSON & JOHNSON NEGOTIATES BAND-AID DEAL WITH IOC

The IOC has negotiated an agreement with the cautious US consumer-products giant Johnson & Johnson to become one of The Olympic Partners (TOP) Program. The company will have exclusive marketing rights in the health-care products category as an international sponsor, but it only includes the 2008 Summer Games, at least for now. Like Lenovo is doing with the Torino Winter Olympics, Johnson & Johnson appear to be testing the return on investment from being involved in the Olympic marketing and sponsorship program before committing to a longer term. The amount of the deal wasn't revealed, but industry sources put such deals in the C$60 million to C$70 million range if it includes a Winter and Summer set of Games. The agreement involves Johnson & Johnson’s consumer products, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and medical devices and diagnostics. In July 2005, Johnson & Johnson became a domestic partner of the Torino 2006 and Beijing 2008 Games. The new deal allows the firm to use their marketing rights globally from the end of the Torino Games until the end of the Beijing Games.

SAY WHAT?

From our Quote Without Comment Department: "Then there's product placement, which is bad enough in reality television, but out of control in the [Torino Winter] Games. At least I can believe the builders of Extreme Makeover would use Sears products, or that American Idol's Randy Jackson would drink a large Coke. At the Olympics, however, the majority of products you see in support of athletes are ones they would never use. Hayley Wickenheiser advertises Hamburger Helper -- please! And could someone tell me what figure skater trains with a Big Mac?" -- Law student Ryan Austin in his blog, Lawyerlike. "A new star emerged Thursday at the Olympics: the quadriplegic mayor of the city that will host the 2010 Winter Games... with wit and charisma, Sam Sullivan demonstrated how -- despite minimal use of his hands -- he will be on the receiving end of the traditional Olympic flag handover at Sunday's closing ceremonies." -- American broadcast network news CBS ~~~~~~~ "Another possible but seemingly remote threat [to Canada hosting the 2010 Winter Games] would be a renewed push by separatists in French-speaking Quebec to secede from Canada. The separatists narrowly lost a secession referendum in 1995, and their new leader has vowed to try again if his Parti Quebecois wins provincial elections due by early 2008. But an actual breakaway remains a long shot; even a recent proposal by one separatist leader for Quebec to form its own hockey team didn't catch on." -- Associated Press reporter David Crary, in a report carried in dozens of American newspapers and online websites. ~~~~~~~ "The failure of the U.S. reigning silver medallists from Salt Lake City to return home without a medal will not stand out among a growing list of disappointments by American athletes in Turin. In Canada, however, the birth place of hockey, where the game is a religion, the early exit will be viewed as nothing short of a national disaster." -- Reuters news wire, also carried in dozens of newspapers.

RESOURCES

Lawyerlike:
lawyerlike.blogspot.com/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1509
"COME PLAY WITH US IN 2010" SLOGAN PART OF WHAT'S TO BE UNVEILED AT TORINO CLOSING CEREMONY

At least one of the 2010 Winter Games' slogans will be “Come Play with Us in 2010”, and although it is virtually identical to a registered trademark of the Ontario Lottery Corporation, it will be introduced during the Closing Ceremony of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games on Sunday, February 26. Officials say there will be other slogans to come.

The theme and cast for the Vancouver 2010 segment of the Closing Ceremony, under tight wraps until now, was discussed today by the Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). The theme is largely focused on the 18- to 35-year-old market, which International Olympic Organizers first started to work on during the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, following an internal marketing report that fretted about the lack of interest in the Games by that age group.

The performance is being produced by VANOC's vice-president of Culture and Ceremonies, Burke Taylor. Taylor is the former Vancouver cultural affairs director who is also in charge of the four-year "cultural Olympiad" which starts with the end of the Torino ceremony.

Rock singer Avril Lavigne and Canadian opera tenor Ben Heppner will both be featured -- Heppner will sing Canada's national anthem a capella, flanked by Canada's best known symbol internationally, RCMP officers in their formal red serge uniforms. They'll be followed by more than 60 artists and athletes, most young, from across Canada. The eight-minute segment follows the official handover of the Olympic flag to the Mayor of Vancouver, Sam Sullivan, and a ceremony involving the aboriginal bands that are working with VANOC; the groups are known locally as First Nations.

“We’re presenting an extraordinary line-up of talent to launch the countdown to our Games,” said VANOC CEO John Furlong. “Ben Heppner honours Italy’s passion for opera. Avril Lavigne rocks a whole generation. And our performing troupe of over 60 artists and athletes will celebrate our joy in winter sport as we invite the world to play in 2010,” he said. “What’s more, the handover of the Olympic flag to Mayor Sullivan and the participation of our First Nations chiefs promise to be proud moments for all Canadians, and powerful moments in Olympic history.”

After the anthem, the Olympic Flag will be given by Torino mayor Sergio Chiamparino back to International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. PRogge will then insert the flag into a special holder developed for the wheelchair of Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, a quadriplegic.

After mayor Sullivan comes the aboriginal ceremony. The cast rehearsed in two groups, one in Vancouver, the other in Montreal. They were then integrated in Vancouver and flown to Torino. The show includes a Vancouver-based dance corps together with the latest concepts in what VANOC calls "boarding, sk8ting and skiing." The Montreal-based members of the cast are acrobatic performers from Canada’s National Circus School, and Les sept doigts de la main, supported by Cirque du Soleil.

Lavigne will sing the finale. An odd excerpt of an interview with Lavigne, recorded during a break in Closing Ceremony rehearsals in Vancouver last week, was posted on VANOC's website today.

The Closing Ceremony will be seen by a live audience of approximately 32,000 spectators and an estimated worldwide television audience of what VANOC claims will be "more than 500 million," and what Torino's organizers claim will be nearly 2 billion. Repeated requests to VANOC, TOROC and the IOC to reconcile the potential audience figure have gone unanswered, although TOROC spokesmen claim their number was "extrapolated" from the audience of the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Vancouver 2010 says it had financial help in paying for the staging of the performance from the federal government's Foreign Affairs department, the Canadian Tourism Commission, Tourism BC; Tourism Vancouver and Tourism Whistler for their financial support of the Vancouver 2010 segment of the Torino Closing Ceremony, but it has not disclosed the amounts involved.

RESOURCES

The VANOC web page which offers several videos, including the one of Avril Lavigne
http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/Downloads/PublicVideoArchive

The Canadian Trade-marks Database entry for the Ontario Lottery Corporation's slogan "Come Play With Us", which was registered in July, 2003:
tinyurl.com/mu3bu

An earlier story we wrote on the Ceremony:
'The target audience may be smaller than estimated, but cultural headliners supervise 2010's Torino's closing ceremony segment'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1365; Published on Thursday, December 15, 2005]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1508

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

MILITARY MANEUVERS CONSIDER 2010 GAMES

The Canadian military says it has already held at least one set of maneuvers to provide it with information on how to protect the 2010 Winter Games. Rear-Admiral Roger Girouard, who assumed command of Joint Task Force Pacific (JTFP) February 1, and who is also the commander of Maritime Forces Pacific, says that an exercise in which naval and air personnel from the command headquarters at Esquimalt, near Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, and Canadian Forces Base Comox, based about halfway up the east coast of the Island, worked with the U.S. and Canadian coast guard and the US navy off the west coast last year provided military planners with ideas on initial security issues at the 2010 Games. "For part of that exercise we looked at how we might conduct air defence for the Olympics," Girouard says. There are air force units based at Esquimalt, Comox and Abbotsford, a city in the Fraser River valley east of Vancouver.

BRITAIN INCREASES WINTER ATHLETE FUNDING FOR 2010

The Chairman of the British Olympic Association said today it will add an additional £120,000 (C$242,282) for aiding the country's athletes in training for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Colin Moynihan, who came into office last October, says that he would donate all of the Chairman's Honorarium, £20,000 per year (C$40,362), and, with matching corporate funding, set up the BOA Olympic Winter Athlete's Honorarium Fund. The new account would be made available to support Olympic winter athletes aiming to compete in the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games in 2010. As Moynihan put it, "Every Olympic winter sport put their full backing behind the London Bid for the Olympic Games. In the lead-up to 2012, we must ensure that our winter athletes receive as much of the focus and support as their summer counterparts. Blue-chip companies will match-fund the honorarium, and I hope the fund will go some way to ensure that our winter athletes are given the best possible opportunities as they begin their journey towards the Vancouver Games in 2010. The Fund will be divided between the seven Olympic winter sports each year. The BOA will work with the various governing bodies of the sports federations to ensure the monies are used directly to support those athletes in training for Vancouver 2010.

SCOTT, KOIVU ELECTED TO REPRESENT ATHLETES AT IOC

Canadian cross-country skier Beckie Scott of Vermilion, Alberta, was one of two Olympians elected to the IOC's Athletes' Commission for an eight-year term. Finnish ice hockey player Saku Koivu was also elected. The 16-day election period ran from February 8 to 23, and there were 15 candidates. Scott received 449 votes, Koivu 412 votes. A total of 2,003 athletes -- a record number -- voted in the election, representing 78.2% of all eligible voters. Scott will gain IOC membership status on Sunday. She will become Canada's second IOC member, joining Richard Pound of Montreal, who runs the World Anti-Doping Agency. An advocate of drug-free sport, Scott is also Canada's representative on WADA's new 13-member Athlete Committee. She works with fellow international lobbyists to allow WADA closer contact with athletes. The Canadian Olympic Committee's Director of Athlete and Community Relations, Chris Farstad, says, "As an IOC member, Beckie will now be able to participate in influential discussions leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing, Vancouver and London while providing an important voice for Canada's athletes." Previous Canadian athletes elected to the IOC Athletes' Commission include Charmaine Crooks of North Vancouver, who is also a member of VANOC's board of directors, representing the COC.

BACKGROUND

The last name of Rear-Admiral Roger Girouard is pronounced "Jehr-AHRD".

--

Esquimalt, the headquarters of the JTFP, is a municipality adjacent to Victoria that includes a large, naturally protected harbour that's largely taken up with military -- primarily naval -- facilities, but also includes civilian shipbuilding and its supporting industry. The area's name is pronounced pronounced "Ess-KWY-malt." It is an anglicized version of a native Indian word, "Ess-WHOY-malth," which means "shoaling water," according to non-aboriginal researchers. The Songhees aboriginal band, which resides in the area, says Whyomilth is one of their large family names, and that's where the name originates.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2006

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government, Business| #1507
SHORTLIST FOR DEVELOPING VANCOUVER 2010 WINTER VILLAGE SHRINKS

And then there were three.

The project manager for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Village, Jody Andrews, says another prospective developer group has withdrawn from the opportunity to construct the buildings for the 2010 Olympic Village in Vancouver, leaving only three firms in the running.

The Windmill Development Group, which was one of five firms that said formally they were interested in the multi-million dollar project, has withdrawn because, according to Andrews, of its commitment to a project in Victoria. The firm has an environmental track record that came from building two mixed-use projects in Calgary and Ottawa aiming at LEED Gold standards, and the Dockside Green project in Victoria aiming at LEED Platinum. It had arranged to work with Great West Life Realty Group and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, as well as Busby Perkins & Will Architects, a Vancouver architecture firm whose work includes One Wall Centre -- the tallest skyscraper in Vancouver -- and the Mount Pleasant Community Centre in Vancouver.

Earlier Concert Properties pulled out after widespread concerns concerning optics. Concert said on October 29, 2003 it would not be involved in the Athletes Village due to the potential conflict of interest. "Concert will not be involved in any Olympic project. Period. Full stop," was the exact quote at the time, from its chairman and CEO, Jack Poole, who is also chairman of VANOC's Board of Directors. Concert had also seconded or volunteered several senior staff of the firm to help work on the Olympic bid and prepare the Bid Book that led to Vancouver winning the Games. And one of its executives was on a committee that was advising VANOC's venues people on construction matters.

Still in the running are, in alphabetical order:

Concord Pacific Group, a developer of urban, master-planned residential communities. It is working with Walter Francl Architects and Hancock Bruckner & Wright Architects.

The Millennium Group, a diversified Vancouver-based real estate developer that has been in business for about 60 years. Its team includes Gomberoff Bell Lyon & Architects Group and Merrick Architecture.

Wall Financial, a B.C.-owned and -operated public company (TSX:WFC) with about 40 years of experience building skyscrapers as well as single and multi-family housing developments throughout the Lower Mainland. It has teamed up with Hotson Bakker Boniface Hadden Architects.

City staff are now evaluating the various proposals provided by the remaining three. Andrews says Vancouver City Council is expected now to chose one firm in the latter part of March.

Other highlights of how the Olympic village will work, according to Andrews:

The 'dish' concept of how the buildings will be arranged in height is expected to be maintained. Under this concept, the focus of the development will be a small inlet on the shoreline that's essentially north of where Manitoba Street would be if it were extended northward to the shore. Builidings in that area would be about two or three stories and as the radius is extended outward -- to the west, south and east, buildings -- which will first be used for the Olympic Village residences and then later as apartment blocks, would rise in stages from about four or five floors up to 10 or 12 storeys.

Most of the parking will be underground, but because of ground conditions, most will only be one floor parking lots. Andrews says there will be "relaxed" parking regulations in the area -- meaning that the City will not require the developer to strictly follow the number of parking stalls normally required for buildings of those sizes, but, he adds, the city won't relax its restrictions as much as it did in the developments built further to the west of the south side of False Creek. Those restrictions were relaxed so much that there was insufficient parking for the developments, and the city had to build additional parking structures on what was intended to be parkland to offset the problem.

A number of private property owners with land between the eastern edge of the Olympic village, which borders Quebec Street, and Main street, the larger parallel street to the east, have been discussing the possibility of redeveloping their lands because of the Olympic Village development, but nobody, he says, has yet filed a rezoning application for any of the properties.

The "island" that's due to be constructed to the west of the inlet as part of the agreement to offset some encroachment on the creek by the project's design will now depend on the tides. People will be able to walk to the island at low tide, but it will be separated by water at high tide.

The City-driven "Public Realm Plan" is expected to be finished the design stage by April, and that community meetings would be held at that point to determine the look-and-feel of the urban landscape in the area before and after the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is finished with property, expected to be returned to the City-chosen developer in mid-2010 after the Olympic-related look and feel is removed. The Realm Plan is to deal with neighbourhood appearances, streetscape look and feel and landscaping, and how the public areas, such as the community centre and marina for boats without motors, which is to be located between the inlet and the tidal island works with the private areas that are to be turned into residential housing.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 22, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #1506
CAREFULLY SELECTED IOC, CBC STATISTICS SHOW WORLD BROADCASTS OF 2006 GAMES DOING WELL

The International Olympic Committee, which supervises the broadcasting of Olympic Games, says coverage of the first five days of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games dominated television ratings in Europe, especially in the host country Italy, but that there were strong showings recorded in other key markets around the world.

The USA, Japan and China seem to have done well, despite the time differences, while in non-traditional winter sports markets, such as Australia, "ratings are strong."

The IOC hasn't released figures for Canada, but the host broadcaster, the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), says CBC-TV had 1.7 million viewers on the first Saturday afternoon, and two million on the following Sunday afternoon. Overall, CBC's live, afternoon coverage is 32% higher than the equivalent afternoon coverage of the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, according to CBC spokesperson Ruth-Ellen Soles. CBC's prime-time evening coverage, most of it a replay of competition from earlier in the day, averaged 1.2 million viewers in the first week of the Games.

The IOC says Internet streaming in European markets have already exceeded that of the Athens Games with 4.3 million live or on-demand streams served in the first five days. The Torino 2006 website, after four days, was tracking higher than the Athens site. The IOC said there were 50 million page views on Wednesday -– 10 percent more than the Athens site on the same day and almost five times more than that of Salt Lake -- but it did not release individual visitor counts, which, because the websites are different, makes the page-count comparisons difficult to reconcile.

(The European markets, from figures provided by the European distributor, the European Broadcast Union, which also has the contract to distribute the 2010 Winter Games, include markets in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Finland, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.)

Here are the IOC's broadcast highlights to date:

EUROPE:

Italy

Nine of the top 10 sports audiences on Saturday came from the Olympic Winter Games including figure skating (3.8 million viewers).

The men’s combined slalom was the pick of the broadcast schedule on Tuesday, with 4.18 million viewers tuning into Italy's RAI 2. Other highlights included men’s figure skating (3.28 million viewers) and men’s combined downhill (2.92 million viewers).

The gold-medal-winning performance from Italian racer Armin Zoeggeler in the Luge on Sunday attracted 5.5 million viewers.

GERMANY

ZDF’s coverage of speed skating topped the ratings in Germany on Wednesday, with the women’s team pursuit attracting an average audience of 5.1 million viewers. The event had a 21% market share for the time.

The doubles luge was watched by an average of 4.3 million viewers during the afternoon broadcast.

ARD on Sunday showed these broadcast audiences throughout the day:
- Women’s 3000m Speed Skating – 9.33 million viewers (33.4% share)
- Ski Jumping (Normal Hill) – 9.14 million viewers (30.8% share)
- Men’s Luge – 8.3 million viewers (25% share)

FRANCE

France 2 won the Friday night prime time period with 6.9 million viewers for the Opening Ceremony.

On Monday night, 5.17 million viewers (the top audience to date outside of the Opening Ceremony) watched the prime time figure skating.

===

NORTH AMERICA

United States

Up to and including Wednesday night, seven out of 10 U.S. television homes and 140 million total, unduplicated viewers saw the Olympic Winter Games on NBC; that's about half of all Americans.

NBC's Wednesday night coverage drew an average of 17.9 million viewers, nearly doubling its average mid-week ratings this season.

The Opening Ceremony attracted an audience of about 22.8 million viewers. This was the highest Friday prime-time rating since NBC’s telecast of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games on August 20th 2004, which averaged 23 million viewers.

Saturday attracted 23.5 million viewers for the first night of competition. This was the highest rating Saturday on NBC for the four years since the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Games. Furthermore, this was the highest rating first Saturday night of any non-domestic Olympic Games since the Lillehammer Games in 1994.

ASIA

Japan

The time difference made little difference to ratings in Japan with Men’s 500m speedskating attracting 10.83 million viewers Monday, 8.93 million viewers tuned in to see the Women’s Mogul Finals on Saturday, and the delayed broadcast of the Opening Ceremony attracted 10.66 million viewers.

China

CCTV’s coverage of the Games resulted in the highest ratings of any previous Olympic Winter Games on Wednesday February 15, but no details were given.

==

OCEANIA

Australia

About one-third of the Australian TV audience have tuned into Olympic Winter Games coverage so far. As of 15 February, 6.9 million Australians in the five metropolitan markets have watched all or part of Seven’s coverage since the Opening Ceremony.

The delayed broadcast of the Opening Ceremony showed a network peak audience of 1.55 million on Saturday night, with an average of 1.25 million.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 22, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1505

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

KERMODE-FOR-2010-MASCOT CAMPAIGN ON AGAIN

The BC government's Throne Speech announcement that it intended to make the Kermode bear the provincial government's symbolic animal has galvanized the campaign, headquartered in the northwest BC town of Terrace, to make the bear the mascot of the 2010 Winter Games. The white-coated bear is a genetic variation of the brown bear common in the province's wilds, and it has been heavily, and successfully, promoted under the PR-name of 'Spirit Bear' as a symbol of BC's forest-environmental movement. Terrace town councillor Brian Downie and a former member of the legislature for the Skeena riding which surrounds it, Roger Harris, were behind a large push more than a year ago, endorsed at one point by BC's current governor-general, Iona Campagnolo, who is a former Liberal member of Parliament for the same riding, to convince VANOC that it should adopt the Kermode for its lucrative mascot. But VANOC said it wouldn't be choosing the mascot before 2007. Downie and Harris say it's time to restart the campaign, and intend to take "Gimpy", a stuffed Kermode, on another tour of northern BC communities this year in an effort to get the campaign going again. VANOC has also been asked to consider using the orca, popularly but incorrectly known as a "killer whale", and the Whistler marmot, a small furry creature after whom the municipality and its famous ski mountain are named, as mascots as well. VANOC CEO John Furlong has said that, by far, the most obvious and sustained campaigning has been for the Kermode.

IOC KEEPS CLOSE TABS ON GAMES AS THEY RUN
When the 2010 Winter Games are held, the entire International Olympic Committee will also be in Vancouver and Whistler. Officially, they take part in a project called the IOC Members’ Observation Program. The IOC says the Program has two main objectives. The first is to ensure that the IOC is present at each competition venue on each day of competition, as well as in the Olympic Villages, the main media and medical centres, in order to for the IOC to have a direct liaison with the organizing committee, the international sports federations that supervise the various games. The second objective is to see how the current Games run, since that helps them understand the reasons for the preparations for the next Olympic Games. The main areas in which the IOC Members take part include accommodation, media services, technology, accreditation, environmental protection, spectator services and protocol. IOC spokesmen say that when the Members notice things that could be improved in the venues that they visit, they report back to the person who has the title of IOC Delegate Member for Games Observation -- at the moment, it's Anton Geesink -- who then organizes and reports the information to the Games Coordination meeting, which is held daily when the Games are running, so that the Organising Committee officially knows about it. From the daily reports of the Members, and a final Global Evaluation Report produced by each observer, Geesink produces an evaluation report, which is used to help prepare the final report of the Coordination Commission which oversees the Games -- in 2010's case the Commission is currently headed by Rene Fasel. It also is used by the IOC's administration, for the IOC’s formal Transfer Of Knowledge Program, a database that's available to organizers of upcoming Games. VANOC people have said this database is used on a daily basis by them. Geesink says that “When an IOC Member goes to a venue as an observer, he goes not as a referee, nor as an administrator but as an interested and experienced third party, and while the problems are often only small ones, when there is a major issue, we are able to bring it directly to the attention of the Organising Committee, the Games Coordination Office, the international federations and the chefs de mission [the heads of the national sports teams at the Games].”

VIANDE ROSE TO US OCCASION

From our Your Are What You Meat Department: Tyson Foods, of Scottsdale, Arizona (NYSE:TSN) is a US company that produces" value-added chicken products," and is expanding into pork and beef equivalents. It says it has agreed to sponsor the US Olympic Team when it comes to British Columbia for the 2010 Winter Games. That would make Tyson "the official chicken, beef and pork sponsor... and an official supplier to the [US] athletes' training centers," according to the company's enthusiastic chairman and CEO, John Tyson.

RESOURCES

A photo of the Kermode bear:
www.naturescapes.net/portfolios/pics/userpics/13337/CCCA-01048.jpg

Tyson Foods's corporate website:
www.tysonfoodsinc.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 22, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1504

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

IOC TO TALK MAJOR MARKETING TOMORROW

The International Olympic Committee has an unusual announcement it says it intends to make on Thursday to the hundreds of reporters currently gathered in Torino for the Winter Games. IOC officials will only say that it has to do with marketing. However, the president of the IOC, Jacques Rogge, and Chairman of the IOC Marketing Commission, Gerhard Heiberg will be on hand, along with the IOC's director of Television & Marketing Services, Timo Lumme. It's unusual because the IOC doesn't normally talk much about its marketing, even though TV and other broadcast media, particularly for Olympic Games, involve billions of dollars, and account for about half the revenues of the Olympic movement.

RONA TO HIKE MARKETING BUDGET 10%

Rona (RON; TSX), VANOC's building-supplies sponsor, says it intends to increase its marketing budget by 10% over 2005 to C$130 million in the coming fiscal year. "As a national partner of VANOC, we have already had the opportunity to boost our visibility on a national level during the Winter Olympic Games in Turin." Last spring, the company signed an eight-year sponsorship the Olympic and Paralympic Games which VANOC valued at C$60 million. The company says that as of the end of its fourth quarter, December 25, the balance due on this agreement is approximately $58 million. The company also saysits net earnings jumped more than 26% in its fourth quarter and fiscal 2005. Primarily that was due to corporate expansion; organic growth -- sales without its Totem subsidiary -- were up 4.2%. The Rona network has 581 stores to date, compared with 550 a year ago. The company earlier said that it intended the market the Olympics through its outlets.

RBC'S BEIJING PRESENCE UPGRADED TO BRANCH LEVEL

In other VANOC sponsor news today, the Royal Bank of Cana