With today being day 85 of the lockout, and the season all but abandoned, networks and advertisers have settled on Plan B and are embracing alternatives to reach the traditional hockey viewer demo.

There may not be one clear replacement that produces the level of engagement and audience composition of an NHL broadcast, but the viewers who were once watching hockey are not hiding in fallout shelters until the lockout ends; they are just watching other things, and that has forced media buyers to get creative in their pursuit of hockey’s once coveted audience.

Steve Aronovitch, broadcast investment manager at Starcom Worldwide in Toronto, has had no trouble finding replacement players. Aronovitch has put his faith in other sports properties such as The NFL on Global and WWE, as well as top 20 shows like Lost on CTV and has been pleased with their performances.

Theresa Treutler, SVP media director at Doner Canada, has also looked outside of sports programming to fill the hockey void. Treutler has gone to specialty channels like Discovery Canada, The Comedy Network and Teletoon which have shown large growth numbers for adults 18-49 this fall, as well as other top 20 shows like The O.C., The Simpsons, and Desperate Housewives.

Other media buyers who have hedged their bets by combining sports and non-sports programming in the media plans, are also eagerly awaiting the mid-season debuts scheduled for January 2005 like top 20 properties American Idol and 24 (which debuts with a two-hour premiere Sunday Jan. 9 on Global Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Maritimes and then moves to its regular slot Monday Jan. 10 at 9 p.m. on CH Hamilton, Vancouver and Montreal.)

In the early stages of the lockout, ratings for sports networks were lifted by a particularly strong World Series and Grey Cup, and there are several more hot sports properties on the horizon that are expected to alleviate some of the burden hockey’s absence has created. As mentioned in Media in Canada Dec. 7, TSN is preparing for this month’s World Junior Hockey Championship. Two years ago in Halifax (the last time the tournament was in a North American time zone) the gold medal game and semifinals became TSN’s highest and second-highest rated programs of all time.

There are non-hockey alternatives as well. The NFL playoffs kick off at the end of the month when they briefly move into the Saturday night time-slot (that used to compete with HNIC) and finish with the Superbowl on Feb. 1.

Unfortunately, sports programming as a whole has suffered as a result of hockey’s absence. TSN has not been able to get numbers for minor league hockey telecasts to even compare to non-Leafs broadcasts from the previous year, though it is boasting that last Wednesday’s Baby Leafs game outdrew the Raptor’s NBA broadcast on the same night.

But television is not the only alternative. TSN.ca has reported increases in total page views and unique visitors in every area of its Web site over last year and has had success with some of its lockout-related broadcast initiatives such as TSN Solution and TSN Hot Seat.

Many marketers have also mined the lockout theme for creative executions such as Marqueur.com which has teamed up with Bauer Nike Hockey in an attempt to draw back its hockey fantasy pool players with its Lockout 2004 contest. Imitating the current media dilemma, the site promises a prize for whoever can come up with good potential solutions to hockey’s lockout stalemate.