Radio-Canada has received more than 150 emails of complaints in recent days about the numerous advertisements during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games. The advertising blocks interrupted the broadcast of several numbers of the show on Friday, which many viewers deplored. In response to the criticism, the public broadcaster says it is currently working to find “a better balance” between advertisements and content for the upcoming major events.
“We are, however, taking note of the comments received and will evaluate other approaches during the next opening ceremonies,” Radio-Canada said on Monday. A better balance between advertising and content for the closing ceremony, which will be broadcast on August 11, is also being discussed.
The ads took up a total of 42 minutes of airtime out of the nearly five hours that the flamboyant opening show of the Games lasted, “which is less than in regular programming,” the broadcaster was keen to point out. Radio-Canada also indicated that the ratio between ads and content was roughly identical at the same time on CBC, its English-language counterpart. That said, many viewers will have noticed that the presentation of the opening ceremony on France 2, a French public channel, was not punctuated by as many advertising blocks.
Radio-Canada maintains that advertising during major events of this type is a necessary evil. “As with all major events, we cannot present the continuous thread of the show without interruption. It should be noted that there would be no broadcast of the Olympic Games without sponsors,” added the Crown corporation.
As of Monday, the public broadcaster said it had received 154 comments about the ad during the Paris opening show, not including those posted on social media.
Huge success
The opening of the Olympic Games attracted an average of 1.2 million viewers live on Friday afternoon on ICI Télé and RDS. The end of the show, when Celine Dion sang theOde to love on the Eiffel Tower, is the moment that was watched the most.
The evening rebroadcast attracted an average of over 500,000 people. Interest in this ceremony was incomparable with that shown in the opening shows of the last Games in Beijing and Tokyo. The significant time difference with Asia obviously comes into play, but the fact remains that the grand spectacle on the Seine generated over 500,000 connections on Radio-Canada’s various web platforms, seven times more than the opening of Tokyo 2020.