The Bold And The Beautiful

Remember CBC Country Canada?
You know, the digital TV channel that likely still causes steam to come out of the ears of the country's many curling fans.
Times have changed, though, my friends. Country Canada is dead, replaced by bold (all lower case, you should know). And bold is how equestrian and sailing event lovers might want to display the schedule this channel is offering as part of CBC's massive 2,400-hour broadcast presentation at the Beijing Olympics.
Of that total, 250 hours will be carried by bold — all of it devoted to coverage of sailing and equestrian competition, starting with individual and team eventing dressage on Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET. That's the first full night of Olympic action (actually, it's Saturday morning in Beijing).
You'll hear the voices of Nancy Wetmore, analysts Beth Underhill and Cara Whitham, and reporter Erin Paul at the equestrian venue in Hong Kong throughout the Games. When the action turns to the high seas, CBC's sailing crew of Peter Rusch and Fiona Kidd takes over.
Bold is just one part of a multi-pronged CBC plan to provide Canadians with the most extensive Olympic coverage they've ever seen. You'll find another 145 hours of Olympic content on CBC Newsworld, much of it centred around Beijing Today, a live newsmagazine show with host Brian Dunstan that debuts Saturday at 6:30 a.m. ET and runs every hour thereafter through 12:30 p.m. We've already detailed the 150 hours of additional Games programming you'll find on TSN.
Add on another 1,500 hours of coverage on CBCSports.ca — they'll offer live streaming of nine sports throughout the Games (women's soccer, cycling, beach volleyball, rowing and men's water polo and basketball are featured this weekend) — and it's a mighty impressive total.
French-language viewers will also be well-served, with 263 hours on Radio-Canada and another 206 airing on RDS.
Nope, they're certainly not mailing this one in, even though CBC will surrender its 'Canada's Olympic Network' title to a CTV Globemedia-Rogers Communications consortium for the next two sets of Games (Vancouver 2010 and London 2012).
It should be quite the feast for the eyes, indeed.
For as long as you can keep them open, that is.