from David Shoalts of the Globe and Mail,
Of all the headaches the NHL broadcast contract has given Rogers Media, one stands out: the constant stream of complaints from viewers.
On Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media, along with the comments following online stories, the majority of gripes fall into two broad categories. The first can be summed up as get rid of Hockey Night In Canada host George Stroumboulopoulos and bring back his predecessor, Ron MacLean. The second is hate for the new look and new faces Rogers brought to the broadcasts, with the bulk of the complaints about Hockey Night, which was a CBC institution for 62 years.
The belly-aching makes some Hockey Night staffers, who go back to the days when the CBC produced the show, shake their heads. They find the non-stop complaining ironic, considering that in the final CBC years, which ended in 2014, viewers complained a lot about that version of Hockey Night on the same forums.
“We were under siege,” is the way one veteran Hockey Night staffer describes the complaints about the show that hit the CBC. Another long-time employee says the criticism was not as intense as that being fired at Rogers: “There was complaining, sure, but not like this.”
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