ANDRE BEGIN

Not too long ago, I was having lunch at a cool restaurant in the city that I always enjoy for its ambience, service and amazing food. For me, it’s a little piece of heaven during a busy day of appointments or shopping.

Over the course of my lunch, I couldn’t help but look up at the big screen televisions that were all tuned to sports networks. From what I could tell with the volume off, the hosts and commentators were recapping recent events, showing scoreboards and stats galore, and previewing upcoming games. However, there weren’t any actual games being played.

As I waited for my food, I made up my own game out of trying to read the lips of the announcers and then watching the clips that followed to try to figure out what they were talking about.

Just the same, I couldn’t help but wonder: when we can’t hear the announcers, with no captions and there weren’t any games in play, was this a value-added viewing experience? Was this a missed opportunity?

That was when I started wondering what other types of programming they could show that could add to the ambiance to enhance the viewing and dining experience.

Back in the 1980s, I vividly remember how some bars would tune their satellite dishes to either MTV or MuchMusic and have a steady stream of music videos for guests to enjoy. Could bars and restaurants air music-related programming, such as contemporary (or even retro) music videos or live concerts today? Could that be a crowd pleaser? Maybe.

In 2015, I attended a Eurovision Song Contest viewing party at a bar in New York City and had a most fantastic time. Given that Canada is now a member of the EBU and will be competing, to me, it seems like a no-brainer to have viewing parties of the Canadian competition to select the song to represent us at the grand final. How about going one step farther and airing other countries’ national contests (that air in the afternoon, given the time difference with Europe), culminating in a huge grand final party in May?

The game show fan in me would be in heaven to have game shows on every screen. It would be like a throwback to my younger years when daytime TV was populated with game shows on almost every channel. Today, with game shows available on network TV and several FAST channels, the potential to recreate that vibe is there. When you consider the larger-than-life productions, exuberant contestants and big-ticket prizes, the visuals speak for themselves. In some cases, you wouldn’t even need to have the volume on to know what was happening.

With the popularity of big-screen TVs in bars and restaurants, seeing screens occupied by different sports programming doesn’t come as a surprise. But when sports aren’t being played, I think it might be a greater surprise to see other types of programming filling the space with audio and visuals to keep a restaurant hopping and appeal to a broad base of fans.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André