IPC Head Criticizes Paralympics Host Broadcaster

According to the Globe and Mail, Sir Craven said in an interview, "it absolutely smacks in the face of one of our four values, which is equality. So, when I heard this, I was not very happy about it, at all".

CTV intends to broadcast a tape across Canada Saturday of the Opening Ceremony at 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET). But the event will reportedly be shown live Friday in the province of British Columbia, allowing digital subscribers throughout Canada to tune in as well.

Sir Craven said, "I think they're really missing out, not getting it to the rest of the country. These are Canada's Games and they should be all over the country". He said the IPC has tried to pressure CTV to change its mind.

"It seems they've partially responded. I'm glad there's been some improvement, but it's not everything that should have been done".

CTV said in a statement that Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium will provide more coverage of a Paralympics Winter Games than ever before, with 57 total hours of coverage in English and French. There will be daily highlights and live coverage of the Games' most popular sport, sledge hockey.

The CTV statement said, "it would be erroneous to compare coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games to coverage of the 2010 Olympic Games. For an accurate count, you must compare this year's Paralympic Games coverage to what has been delivered in the past. When you look at these statistics, the Consortium's coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games is far and away more robust than what Canadians have ever received.