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The
Spin Cycle:
Remarkable.
Listening to the CBC, one would think they only had a single option: buy the
song --- that they couldn't afford.
Couldn't
be further from the truth.
In
fact, we had stopped discussing that months earlier. CBC said they weren't
interested in buying. Not at the industry standard price. That's fine. No
problem. Just another idea to try getting us out of the logjam.
So
we kept our attention on simply doing the same thing as the last 10
years. That was the old $500 per game thing.
In
all the print, broadcast and internet news coverage, you'd be hard pressed to
find the CBC clearly mention this simple same-as-before option, or why they rejected it.
The
CBC doesn't seem to want the public to know that they had different ways they
could have saved the song. Keeping it on Hockey Night In Canada for years to come:
-
Status
Quo: virtually identical to the license in place for the past 10 years.
$400 - $500 per game. No fee increase for the first 2 years. Easiest.
To address their concern of trying to do a deal with a lawsuit cloud over
their head, we offered to settle by essentially covering our costs.
-
Mediation:
Proved to be unsuccessful.
-
Buyout:
based on industry standard pricing. Simply take average annual earnings,
multiply by 13, there's your price tag. CBC paints it as throwing money
away. They do not mention facts presented to them on how they could easily
earn that money back. This seems to make more sense than just licensing it
year after year with no ownership, and they could also dictate how/where it was
used.
-
3rd
Party Buyout: one of the interested music publishers would buy the song.
CBC doesn't have to spend the buyout price. CBC would have a new partner. We
would be happy to consider the purchase price as settlement, so the lawsuit
disappears. Everybody wins.
-
Announce
a Contest to Find a New Theme: This was of course the CBC's idea
(certainly not ours).
CBC
chose #5.
As
outlined in this Open Letter, CBC did most recently offer to buy the song
outright. However, they offered less than 1/3 of what other publishers were
offering.
That
1/3 was also to cover six years of legal bills and losses (see public
records of CBC admissions).
Click
Here for List of Events, Dates and Correspondence
John
Ciccone
Copyright Music & Visuals
Jun-20-08
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