MAtv, Videotron’s community television channel, is shutting down its Montreal service, Quebecor announced on Wednesday.
The reason is the same reason why Rogers shut down Rogers TV, Shaw closed Shaw TV and Bell pulled funding for TV1 in large cities: The CRTC gave them a financial incentive to do so.
In 2017, when the commission reviewed its regulatory framework for community and local television, it decided to allow vertically integrated broadcast/telecom companies to take some of the money their TV providers had to spend on Canadian content (and were incentivized to use on community television channels) and instead redirect that money to their local private television stations for local news. This was the CRTC’s solution to local news being in financial difficulty. (Non-vertically-integrated TV stations are supported through a separate fund, which is also in crisis because now it has to support Global News as well.)
Quebecor resisted this change at first, choosing to keep MAtv open in Montreal. But with TVA’s financial situation worsened, it has finally chosen to pull the plug. The company says the equivalent of five jobs will be affected, plus three others in the rest of the MAtv network.
The CRTC policy allows 100% of community TV funding to be redirected in large cities (which have private TV stations that do local news), but in smaller markets, only half the funding for community TV can be redirected, so those communities are generally keeping their community TV stations. MAtv will continue to operate in markets outside Montreal. (TVRS, an independent community channel on the South Shore whose content appeared on the MAtv channel on Videotron systems there, will also continue, it said.)
The loss of the Montreal channel, however, means the loss of English-language programming on MAtv. Not that there was much left anyway. CityLife, the last regular program in English, was cancelled a year ago.
Quebecor says it will keep MAtv Montreal going until next summer to air programs it has produced. After that, it’s a bit unclear. They could keep the channel and just fill it with programming from other regions, they could replace it with another community channel in Montreal, or remove the channel for Montreal subscribers.
I believe that the Canadian Government needs to have a Parliamentary Inquiry and public hearings into the entire broadcast system, a literal soup to nuts sweep through all parts. Local broadcasters, distribution companies, programming sources, and the relationships and shared ownership that exists at all levels.
The system need to change, because the money is flowing away from the content Canadians want, and is instead flowing to the bottom line of corporations intent on making more profits without consideration if the product meets those consumer needs. Instead, they are entirely concentrated on knocking down barriers that stop them from emptying out newsrooms and studios. They have come to understand that the easiest products are in selling the last mile and not in actually making the product.
Videotron first quarter EBITDA profits were over 400 million, suggestion something like 1.1 to 1.5 BILLION is profits for 2023.
I also think that decisions are made at the broadcast level that negatively affect the bottom line in favor of the corporate ownership. It would not be unreasonable, as an example, for broadcast channels to seek income from cable style distributors. The reason this has not happened is because of corporate ownership and friendly non-competition between the major players.
Bell whines about losing 40 million on News, not explaining that they sell millions of cable subscriptions at a fat profit based on that very content being delivered. Given say 10 million cable or cable equivalent subscribers, if CTV received overall 20 cents per subscriber per month to pay for local news they would get nearly enough to fill that gap.
More importantly, Bell, Rogers, and others have dragged their feet on the internet part of things. They have been fast to offer services, but they spent years limiting bandwidth and playing games to make online services less desirable. It is only in the last few years that they have finally gotten off their butts to offer unlimited services, but that unlimited is still limited by their connectivity to the rest of the world, which they carefully limit.
In the US, most local stations offer killed levels of daily news. Some stations are all news all the time. They are community oriented. In Canada, this is not possible not because the markets are too small (many US markets are much smaller) but rather the robber baron mentality has lead to decisions not in favor of the public. Now they want the Government to get in the way and limit the internet in a way that they can once again capture more of the total income while not providing the product people want.
The legislative review panel set up five years ago is something close to this. It made plenty of recommendations on reforming the law, and then the report kind of sat on a shelf.
Except people generally don’t buy cable to get CTV.
The CRTC tried to push for that more than a decade ago. But the court ruled that the Broadcasting Act didn’t allow for free-to-air broadcasters seeking compensation from TV distributors.
The very core of cable, the basic channels, are the over the air channels. You buy the smallest, lowest tier from any of them, and you get the local channels. People do pay for cable to get the local channels. Plenty of people live in areas which are served by local channels but they are unable to receive them without paying for an antenna.
Local channels have always been the core of the cable TV delivery experiences. Videotron basic offering is 23 channels, and more than 1/3 of that are local channels. Most people will choose the antenna channels, adding in the US networks on the basic tier. It’s why you get cable to start with. Many people live in situations where they cannot install outdoor antennas, and as a result cannot receive all local coverage channels.
The very core of the cable universe are the local channels and what you could receive OTA with a reasonable antenna setup.
The broadcasting act can be modified, but I doubt for all the whining that Bell, Rogers, or Videotron would want it. For all the complaining about losing money on local, the last thing they want is to change the landscape and make local TV profitable. The current situation makes opening new TV stations economically unviable, and assures these incumbent players little or no real competition. The money and profits are made up the ladder, on the delivery side, and they don’t want to have to deliver more competition or worse yet actually have to pay others for making the content.
The broadcast act won’t get modified as long as the current crop of politicians are beholden to the big media companies.
I don’t think you can argue that people get cable because of over-the-air channels simply because the CRTC mandates that basic packages include over-the-air channels. Basic cable also includes APTN and CPAC, but I don’t think that means those are essential reasons why people sign up for cable TV.
The argument that Bell and Rogers don’t need for broadcasting to be profitable because they have TV distribution businesses assumes that these are somehow inseparable. We have plenty of distributors who don’t own TV networks (Cogeco, Eastlink, SaskTel, Telus), as well as several TV broadcasters who don’t own telecom companies (Global, CHCH, NTV, CHEK, YesTV, CBC/Radio-Canada, etc.). If broadcast TV remains unprofitable, nothing stops the big broadcasters from shutting the TV networks down and keeping their profit-generating telecom arms.
Consider the reverse: if basic cable did not include OTA channels (including the US networks, naturally) would anyone want to pay for the basic package? APTN, CPAC, and other mandated basic cable channels are financially supported by what people are actually getting basic cable for. Historically, cable was sold as better than your antenna.
As for profits and distributor status, it is a question of non-arms length dealing. Consider what the last 30 years or so would have been if the distributors had not been allowed to become vertical monopolies.
First off, it is very unlikely that the zero payment to local channels regulations would have stood this long. Local channel owners would have long since banded together and pushed for a more balanced financial picture. They would also be less likely to remain affiliates to one network or another if it was not financially viable. They would likely still be in the position to produce their own content – even if it was just travel shows and talking head shows – and they would be gaining direct income from it.
Networks would work to the mutual benefit of the network and the local stations. It is unlikely that a local station would give the network 24 hours per day to program, rather they would work to maximize viewership and local ad sales during the non-primetime hours.
I can say you should give it a try. You are an experienced writer, try backing up that 30 years or whatever and play a different set of cards. What would have happened if Bell the phone company wasn’t allowed to be Bell the CTV network owner, local station owner, local radio owner, etc. What would happen if Rogers couldn’t be such a dominant player? What would the cellular phone networks look like? What would cable and internet look like? Would Bell and Rogers be pushing Netflix with their unlimited internet to keep people away from CTV’s programming?
When you recast the characters, and reverse a few landmark CRTC decisions, the whole universe looks different, and looks much better for consumers.
Yeah, probably. I subscribe for the specialty channels and sports.
Things would probably have gone pretty well for the telecom companies and pretty poorly for the broadcasters. Citytv and Noovo probably wouldn’t exist today. I remember what things were like in 2009 when CTV literally couldn’t give TV stations away.
So you would pay a basic package fee with no real usable channels which ups the cost of what you really want? Do you think that cable would have gone to a specialty only marketing deal where they don’t offer any OTA channels?
So try again. It’s a story idea for you. Wind back the clock to the point say where companies like Baton were allowed to both start and to purchase tons of local affiliate stations. Perhaps you could explain how CTV was going broke and the affiliates and local stations were the ones making the money at that point, and how Baton gained big enough control of the total CTV affiliate stations to lead to what became CTV inc. That process is what entirely destroyed the local TV markets.
2009 was the shuffle period for broadcasting in Canada. the CRTC had allowed their cable arms to become a large scale money funnel towards the companies own pockets. Most of them had grown fat on CRTC mandated package ratios that allowed them to have sizable subscriber income from people who never watched the channels, So from 2006 through 2010 or 2011, there was a lot of horse trading as everyone wanted to get their part of the big money. Local stations, both locked out of any part of the cable income stream, and locked out of making much money because of onerous network affiliation contracts could not be made profitable and thus, nobody would buy them.
it’s called duopoly or perhaps oligopoly, with few players controlling the income side such that they can make any part of their systems appear profitable or weak.
No, this strawman argument is incorrect.
Why would they do this? This seems like a silly thing to do since the over-the-air channels are free.
I’m not an expert in television history, but the days of Baton Broadcasting are long gone. There isn’t much point in comparing TV now to TV then and pretending like if only X decision wasn’t made, there wouldn’t be a revenue crisis now. The entire industry is affected, large and small. They didn’t all just randomly decide to make the exact same error. This is a larger problem.
I think you vastly overestimate how “onerous” network affiliation is, and of course someone could buy a station and end its affiliation if that was the only reason it wasn’t profitable.
The only way for this to fix its self is to let it burn down.
Offer no solutions, as many solutions have been offered by many people on how to fix the CRTC, and it’s regulatory madness. But, it always comes down to the CRTC protecting certain corporations, at the expense of the public, and smaller corporations trying to provide a better service.
Lets all of us stop crying about.
If you don’t need cable TV, cut it and connect a TV antenna to your TV. Especially if you live in a city.
You don’t need to bundle your Cable, phone, and internet with the same provider. Do some math, and shop around. Stop being lazy.
There is plenty of TV, and news channels available on the internet. And for free. Use your computer, or buy a streaming box like Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku Box. And connect it to your internet. You don’t know how it works, then find out.
We have been at it for decades complaining about the Canadian media scene, and the CRTC.
Let’s face it, they have no intention to free things up so that there is real competition. They have sucked the life out it. And they won’t stop until they suck the life out of you and me.
Blow them the hell off.
And if they want more tax dollars to continue, vote for people who run on tax cuts.
We don’t need to fund people who do nothing but suck off the public purse.
We have way more important things to consider.