My thoughts on the news that the CBC may not renew its contract for the HNIC theme song. 

There is no doubt that the CBC would be perfectly happy maintaining the brand image of HNIC by keeping the fabled theme song. However, we don’t know why they are considering not resigning an agreement with Ms. Claman. Perhaps she is asking for an unreasonable sum for use of the song, perhaps they are low-balling her. Maybe they think that because the song is so inextricably linked to HNIC, she couldn’t sell it to anyone else, so why not offer her very little? If that was the case, she could always license it under Creative Commons for anyone to use, or hell, sell it to Molson!

If she is asking an unreasonable amount for it, then I don’t blame CBC for saying “hey its just a song”, and moving on. CBC is a PUBLIC broadcaster. If they have to choose between spending a disproportionate sum of money for the theme song, as opposed to paying a composer a few thousand bucks for a new one, then they have little choice.