Category Archives: TV

| TV

The Daily Show disappears from Canada after CTV drops it (UPDATED)

If you’re like me, you missed late-night shows during the U.S. writers and actors strikes. And though you moved on to other things during the summer, you were looking forward to seeing topical comedy again when they came back.

You might have tuned to CTV at 12:05am and seen another Big Bang Theory rerun and wondered how long it would be until The Daily Show resumed production. And then you might have been confused when you learned they had been producing new episodes for weeks.

Unfortunately, you won’t be seeing The Daily Show again on CTV, or CTV Comedy, any time soon. Bell Media has dropped the show.

When I asked about it, this is the entirety of the response I received from Bell:

I can confirm that Bell Media is no longer carrying THE DAILY SHOW.

I didn’t get a reply to follow-up questions, including the obvious “why?”

A convenient hole-filler

The existence of The Daily Show on CTV, and its popularity among Canadians, probably has as much to do with a scheduling quirk as anything else.

For decades, CTV’s schedule in most markets consists of prime-time programming mainly imported from the U.S. between 8 and 11pm, followed by CTV National News until 11:30 and then late local news until 12:05am. Because the CRTC set Canadian content rules defining prime time as 6pm-12am, the schedule made sense from a regulatory perspective. The more Canadian content (including news) you put in 6-8pm and 11pm-12am, the more U.S. imports you can put in 8-11pm.

After midnight, the rules are different and U.S. imports can come back in. But the two big late-night shows, NBC’s The Tonight Show and CBS’s The Late Show, both start at 11:35pm. ABCs Jimmy Kimmel Live started at midnight but now it too has moved to 11:35.

As a half-hour show, The Daily Show could fill a gap between the 12:05am end of the local news and the 12:35am start of the late-late shows. And during the post-9/11 Jon Stewart era, it gained popularity in both countries.

Now, for whatever reason, Bell has decided it no longer makes sense. Not because schedules have changed, but probably because of money.

The Daily Show isn’t what it was under Stewart. Besides Stewart himself, top talent have moved on to other shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Since Trevor Noah’s departure a year ago, it has had a parade of fill-in hosts.

Meanwhile, The Big Bang Theory is cheap and reruns are very popular in Canada. So for now, at least, CTV is going in that direction.

The Daily Show wasn’t part of CTV’s fall schedule announcement in the summer, which means the decision not to keep it probably dates to at least then.

Where can I watch it?

So if CTV no longer has the rights to the Daily Show, where can Canadians watch it?

The short answer is you can’t. At least not yet. It’s not on a competing network, it’s not on Netflix or Amazon. Your only option to watch it legally is to buy individual episodes on Apple TV.

UPDATE: Thanks to Chris for pointing this out — Paramount+ Canada is adding The Daily Show starting Dec. 5. Comedy Central is owned by Paramount.

There wasn’t another obvious home for The Daily Show on regular Canadian TV. Global has The Late Show, Citytv has Jimmy Kimmel, and there isn’t really another non-Bell-owned comedy channel it would be a good fit for.

UPDATE (Jan. 23, 2024): Some people have noticed The Daily Show disappearing from Paramount+. I asked Paramount about it, and they said “The Daily Show does not currently have new episodes which is why none are currently appearing on Paramount+, stay tuned for more information.”

The day after, Jon Stewart announced he was returning as host one day a week, and Paramount confirmed his shows will be exclusive to Paramount+ in Canada, the day after they’re broadcast.

YouTube blackout

Fans of Seth Meyers may have noticed there aren’t as many clips of his late night show on YouTube as there used to be. Unfortunately the clips are there, they just are being blocked in Canada, along with those of the Tonight Show. Both are Bell-licensed NBC shows. It’s unclear if this is at Bell’s request, to protect its rights, or if it’s NBC’s doing, cutting off non-U.S. countries. The Daily Show has the same problem, with just a handful of YouTube clips not being restricted here.

My questions to Bell on this subject did not elicit a response.

Fortunately, Seth Meyers clips are being posted to Facebook and those are still accessible here, and Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is posting clips (mostly vertical, cuz the youths) to social media as well.

| TV

TVA to replace Yoopa with TV version of QUB Radio

The fallout of the Bell-Quebecor war has another victim: Yoopa, which Bell pulled from its television service in retaliation for Quebecor’s Videotron pulling Bell channels Vrak and Z, is being shut down in January, replaced by a video version of Quebecor’s QUB Radio online radio service as of Jan. 11.

According to its annual filing with the CRTC, Yoopa had $2.6 million in revenue, all but $30,000 of which came from subscriptions, in 2021-22, and spent about $2 million on programming, a bit less than half of which was Canadian. It had 340,000 subscribers and a staff of three.

The loss leaves a hole for television targeting young children, though public broadcasters Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec devote much of their morning programming to programs for kids.

Meanwhile, Quebecor seems to be doubling down on its QUB Radio digital talk radio project, and will now be putting even more resources into it, even though it already has a 24/7 news channel in LCN. Quebecor doesn’t release ratings or financials for this online-only service so we have no idea if it’s successful. But it’s cheap, at least compared to the news programming we see on LCN.

Whether QUB Radio or its still-to-be-named TV version lasts is an open question. Honestly I’m a bit surprised it survived the latest round of media cuts at Quebecor.

In theory, QUB TV could apply to be a national news service, requiring other providers to carry it, but that would require having news bureaus and regular news updates, and the CRTC might have some questions if it tries to just piggyback on LCN’s resources to achieve that status.

Videotron will obviously embrace QUB Radio on TV. Bell is probably not interested. Whether others who carry Yoopa, like Cogeco, make the switch is an open question.

| Media, TV

Desperate TVA cuts a third of its staff

In what the union representing TVA employees called “La journée la plus noire de notre histoire” (the darkest day of our history), the company announced on Thursday afternoon (after a leak from La Presse forced an order to halt trading on its stock) that it is eliminating 547 jobs, representing 31% of TVA Group’s current workforce.

Most of those jobs — 300 — will be in in-house productions through its TVA Productions subsidiary. Though most drama, variety and bid-budget primetime shows are already produced by independent companies, there are a few still done in-house, and three of them — game shows Le Tricheur and La Poule aux oeufs d’or plus trending-video magazine show VLOG — are being outsourced.

This leaves news and news-adjacent programming as the only stuff still done in-house. Newscasts, LCN, morning news/talk show Salut Bonjour, and some programs at TVA Sports.

The expectation is that many of the people working on producing these shows will be hired by the independent companies they will be outsourced to, and TVA “will begin discussions with its partners to encourage them to hire employees affected by the announced measures, according to their needs.”

But that doesn’t mean they’ll get the salary or benefits they did at TVA, and it probably means no longer being unionized.

What’s changing

So here’s a quick list of what has been announced:

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| Media, TV

CTV adds national newscast at 5:30, taking a page from Global

A very disinterested-looking Sandie Rinaldo will host CTV National News at 5:30, but CTV wants to make sure it doesn’t take any of the spotlight off Omar Sachedina.

After decades of having local news at 6pm and national news at 11pm, CTV is mixing things up a bit, announcing this week that it is launching a new national newscast at 5:30pm weekdays on CTV stations across the country, hosted by Sandie Rinaldo.

On one hand, this could be seen as taking a direct shot at Global, which runs Global National during the supper hour, either before, after or sandwiched between local newscasts depending on the market.

On the other hand, this could be seen as CTV wanting to save some money by eliminating half an hour of local news every day and replacing it with national programming. This interpretation fits with CTV’s statement that National News “now also provides unique segments covering the key stories and events happening across Canada and around the world as part of the early evening CTV News local newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays.”

I asked Bell Media if this means cuts to local news staffing.

“We can confirm there are no impacts to staffing levels as a result of the launch of the 5:30 p.m. edition of CTV National News,” was the statement I got back.

That doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be indirect impacts, but at least there are no layoff notices going out right away.

Starting Nov. 13, CTV stations that have been running 5pm local newscasts for the past six years will see those early programs cut to half an hour and replaced by National News. Then the 6pm local newscasts will be “intensely local-focused,” according to Bell Media, since they won’t have to include as much national and international news content. It might not mean less local news (90 minutes is still plenty) but it will mean having to fill less time, and getting a break during what is right now two straight hours of broadcasting from local stations.

Global already sandwiches national news between two local newscasts in several markets including Montreal, so expect a similar feel at CTV, with the assumption that most people will watch one of the local newscasts but not both.

What early national newscasts will look like is a good question. Will it be like local noon newscasts, where reporters do live hits explaining stories they’re just starting to cover that day? Will national reporters have to file earlier, making the 11pm national newscast mainly rehashing what was reported at 5:30pm, or will the 5:30pm newscast have a lot of stories repeated from 11pm the previous day, or some mix of the two? Or will it be like just watching half an hour of CTV News Channel, but with a somewhat larger budget?

Review

UPDATE (Nov. 16): I watched CTV National News from Nov. 15, its third day on the air. It looked like the same CTV National News we’re used to. There was a bit more of that afternoon live-on-the-scene feel, particularly with some breaking stories. More live throws to reporters, although many of them were probably “look-live” in which the reporter’s part was pre-recorded.

With one exception, the 11pm newscast with Omar Sachedina had the same stories as the 5:30pm one with Sandie Rinaldo, though most of the hard-news ones were updated with the evening’s developments and reporter standups that had less daylight outside.

As for the “intensely local-focused” 6pm newscast, it looked like any other. It stayed local for 20 minutes, but for the rest of the hour I counted a couple of local stories, a couple of local briefs, a live interview and weather segments, and the rest was national news, local news from other CTV stations, and various international stories, including one that mostly duplicated one from the national news. The 5pm local newscast, in its reduced 30-minute version, stayed almost entirely local.

| TV

CRTC adds Natyf TV to Quebec basic packages with 13 hours notice

If you’re a digital TV subscriber in Quebec, you’re soon going to start seeing a new TV channel in your basic package. Last week, the CRTC announced it was giving Quebec ethnic TV channel Natyf TV a broadcasting licence and ordering all providers to add it to their basic service and pay $0.12 per subscriber per month.

The order took effect Sept. 1, 2023, and lasts five years. The decision was announced at 11am on Aug. 31, 13 hours before the order came into effect. It was one of several decisions the commission put out in the days before the end of the broadcasting year as it rushed to meet its deadlines.

The next day, realizing that this may be a bit short notice, the CRTC wrote a letter saying providers should add the channel “as soon as reasonably possible.”

(For context, Natyf’s application was filed in April 2021 and the hearing to discuss it was held in January.)

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| TV

Videotron to shut down MAtv community channel in Montreal

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.

| TV

Bell Media gave up on Vrak, now it’s shutting it down (which channel is next?)

The announcement came last week: Bell Media is ending the “activities” of Vrak, a channel that used to be about family and youth but recently has become just another soulless number airing reruns and dubbed American shows.

It was surprising in that Vrak was one of the marquee Astral Media specialty channels, had a larger than usual amount of original programming focused especially on youth (kind of like a Quebec version of YTV), a hefty per-subscriber fee and a good amount of name recognition in Quebec.

But Videotron finally pulled Vrak from its distribution service last week (it wanted to do so more than a year ago, but Bell complained to the CRTC, which finally ruled in February that it could not prevent Videotron from terminating its agreement with the channel and sister channel Z).

And all the stuff that was special about Vrak was in the past tense anyway. It cancelled all that original programming, and even dropped its youth focus. When it announced its fall schedule recently, the “original productions” section was all shows that were original to Bell Media but not to Vrak, and had already aired on Noovo or Crave. Its “interim” schedule, until Sept. 30, allows it to finish off seasons of shows for the few still watching.

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| TV

It’s not just Bell: Here’s how Canadian TV broadcasters are begging the CRTC for relief

There’s been a lot of uproar since Bell Media applied to the CRTC seeking rather drastic relief on its conditions of licence for conventional television stations. But it would be a mistake to think this is just a Bell thing. Just about every major TV broadcaster, including the CBC, has recently asked the commission to give some relief or flexibility. Some of those requests are reasonable, even logical. Others are exceptional. But all of them have the same underlying purpose: finding ways to save money because of economic forces that are pushing people away from traditional television.

Here’s what they’re asking for.

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| TV

Bell Media asks CRTC to eliminate all local news requirements for CTV, CTV2 and Noovo stations

Saying it can’t wait until the coming review of television policy and group licence renewals completes its long process, Bell Media has filed applications with the CRTC to eliminate all regulatory requirements for local news at all of its CTV, CTV2 and Noovo stations across the country.

“Over the last decade, the operating environment for traditional, private Canadian broadcasters has changed dramatically,” Bell writes in its application. “Whereas in the past, Canadians looked to domestic services for information and entertainment, they can now access a virtually unlimited array of DMBUs such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple+, most of which are foreign owned and controlled.”

Specifically, Bell is asking to eliminate the following conditions of licence:

  • A requirement for English-language stations in large markets to broadcast 14 hours of local programming per week
  • A requirement for French-language stations to broadcast local programming each week (5 hours in Montreal and Quebec, 2.5 hours at other stations)
  • Requirements for locally reflective news in English each week (6 hours in large markets, 3 hours in small markets, and special lower quotas for smaller or regional stations)
  • A requirement for 5 hours of locally reflective news each week on Noovo’s Montreal station
  • A requirement for Bell (as a group) to spend 11% of CTV/CTV2’s gross revenues on locally reflective news and 5% of Noovo’s gross revenues

If the CRTC grants all these requests, the only condition of licence related to local programming that would remain is a general requirement that stations outside metropolitan markets must broadcast seven hours of local programming per week (other smaller stations have exceptions for either less local programming or allowing them to group that requirement with nearby stations). This content would have to be local, but not necessarily news.

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| Opinion, TV

Your guide to the new CanCon dramas of 2023

Canadian content. Depending on your views about the broadcasting industry, it’s either an important public policy to ensure Canada has its distinct culture and its citizens consume it, it’s a nationalist protection of cultural sector jobs to prevent talent from moving to Hollywood, or it’s a waste of taxpayer money for poor-quality TV shows that no one wants to watch.

Or maybe a combination of all the above.

This winter and spring saw a bigger than usual crop of new English Canadian scripted series on TV, and with a mix of curiosity and patriotic obligation, I decided to sample each of them.

While funding has always been a challenge for homegrown Canadian TV, discoverability has been an increasingly large one as well. You’re no longer limited to a handful of channels on TV, and even most people with TVs don’t watch a lot of their shows live. Without discoverability, a fantastic Canadian series could be lost to history because no one gave it a chance.

Canadian TV networks are trying. CBC has been pushing its series during Hockey Night in Canada, while CTV has aired endless commercials for its series during more popular programs.

They could do better, though. CTV and Citytv have their series behind online paywalls, requiring TV subscribers to sign in even though CTV and Citytv themselves are available free over the air. And if your TV provider doesn’t have deals with those networks (like, say, Videotron), then you can’t sign in to get access to these series. You’ll either have to wait for reruns or hope they show up on Netflix some day.

Anyway, to help give these series a discoverability boost, I watched a few episodes of each and provide a quick review. Some probably aren’t your cup of tea, and that’s okay, but if some sound interesting to you, and you have access, maybe give them a shot.

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| TV

What Bill C-11 means for online media

It’s done, Bill C-11, Canada’s new Online Streaming Act, has passed the House of Commons and Senate, received royal assent, and been made into law.

Welcome to the end times.

Or maybe not.

A few people have asked me to write about C-11, because they weren’t sure what it would mean. I don’t blame them. But on one hand I was a bit busy with stuff, and on the other hand, reading the bill it became clear that it’s designed not to be very specific about a lot of the things people actually care about. Instead, a lot of the details are just kind of left up to the CRTC, or to the government’s instructions to the commission. The law just establishes a legal framework for regulating online media, and corrects or updates various elements of the Broadcasting Act.

On May 12, the CRTC took the next step in this process, launching a formal consultation process for new regulations on broadcasting. It’s a long process, with a hearing in November, and they expect to actually have new rules put in place in 2024.

Here, I’ll explain a bit of what’s actually happening (and what’s not happening) with this new law and how it’s being implemented. In short: you’re probably not going to notice that much of a difference.

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| TV

CRTC orders Canadian TV providers to offer The News Forum to subscribers

Seven years after the Sun News Network shut down, Canada once again has a fifth national news network in the eyes of the CRTC.

On Tuesday, the commission determined that The News Forum, a conservative low-budget news discussion channel that tries to be a bit more serious than Sun News was, can be classified as a national mainstream news network, and get the same class of licence as CBC News Network, CTV News Channel, RDI and LCN. The big perk of that licence class is that all licensed Canadian TV providers must now add The News Forum to their systems, offer it to their subscribers, and package it with other news services.

Subscribers are not forced to add the channel to their packages, but this will undoubtedly increase the total subscriber base, especially since not all Canadian providers have added TNF to their systems so far. (Bell, Rogers, Telus and SaskTel have, but Cogeco and Videotron haven’t yet.) And more subscribers will mean more revenues, especially as this status gives TNF more power in negotiating wholesale rates with providers.

In May, the CRTC denied a similar application from TNF, finding that its schedule did not show it providing updated news reports at least every 120 minutes. TNF adjusted its schedule and applied again for the status.

While the schedule has been adjusted, not much has changed with the channel. Looking at its YouTube channel, it’s still mainly talking heads having long conversations on various public affairs topics. There are no actual journalists or news stories per se, and the bent is still right-wing with former Conservative politicians like Tony Clement and Tanya Granic Allen hosting shows. And it relies very heavily on repeats to fill the schedule, with just a couple of hours of original programming a day, though they have added new shows recently.

There’s a chance that with some new revenue The News Forum could invest in its programming, hire journalists and start looking more like an all-news channel that provides an alternative to CTVNC and CBCNN. But with video views on YouTube in the single and double digits, it has a long way to go before attracting people’s attention.

| TV

What we know (and don’t) about the Lisa LaFlamme story

In case you’ve been in a coma since Monday, you know that CTV News has ended its contract with Lisa LaFlamme, the chief anchor and senior editor of CTV National News.

Since then, every day has brought new revelations, questions and rumours about what happened and why. I have no original reporting on this, nor any insider knowledge or insight, but I do have a good sense of what reporting can be trusted as fact and what sizes of salt grains should be taken with the rest. So here’s my compilation of what’s been reported so far:

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| TV

The News Forum tries again to seek must-offer licence from CRTC

The News Forum, a low-budget conservative news-talk TV channel that last year got enough subscribers to require a broadcasting licence from the CRTC, is trying again to get the commission to force Canadian television distributors to offer the channel to their subscribers, less than two months after the commission denied their first attempt at this status.

The channel, owned (in fact if not legally) by Tore Stautland, asked the commission when it was licensed to be given the same category of licence as Canadian all-news channels CBC News Network, RDI, CTV News Channel and LCN. These channels are subject to a special status requiring all distributors to carry them, though it is up to the subscriber to choose whether or not to actually subscribe to it. (CBC NN and RDI also have a separate mandatory subscription order in Quebec and the rest of Canada, respectively.)

In its decision in May approving the licence, the CRTC denied that status, saying “the Commission is not satisfied that The News Forum provides updated news reports every 120 minutes,” which is one of the criteria it set in its policy.

It left the door open to applying again for that status, once it shows it meets the criteria.

So now The News Forum is trying again, after providing an “updated schedule” showing “daily updates” every two hours from 6am to 8pm. (The schedule suggests they will start at five minutes and 30 seconds past every two hours, until 30 minutes past the hour, but I think they meant to say the updates would be five minutes long until 5:30 past the hour.)

A glance at its website and YouTube channel suggest little else has changed about The News Forum. It still doesn’t seem to employ any journalists besides the anchors, who read out news briefs to still images and then conduct interviews via video link.

But that wouldn’t necessarily preclude it from getting that status. The CRTC’s criteria related to programming are the following:

  • Providing news updates every 120 minutes
  • At least 90% Canadian programming
  • At least 16 hours a day original programming (first-run or repeated)
  • At least 95% of all programming from the following categories: News, analysis and interpretation, long-form documentary and reporting and actualities
  • No more than 12 minutes of advertising per hour
  • Operate a live broadcast facility and maintain news bureaus in at least three regions other than that of the live broadcast facility
  • “have the ability to report on international events from a Canadian perspective”

Like Sun News Network before it, TNF is fully original, though it relies heavily on repeat programming and much of that is opinion, which can be classified as “analysis and interpretation.”

The part about news bureaus and broadcast facilities might be a challenge for The News Forum. But it will be up to the commission to decide if it meets the criteria.

And even if it does get the status, no one has to subscribe to it (unless it’s in a package you want).

The CRTC is accepting comments on The News Forum’s application until Aug. 8. You can submit comments here. Note that all information submitted, including contact information, becomes part of the public record.

 

| TV

How the Rogers-Shaw deal would affect Global News

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today begins a five-day hearing into the proposed purchase of Shaw Communications by Rogers. You can follow a live stream online and see the agenda here.

While there are a lot of competition-related concerns about this purchase, and particularly how it will remove a fourth wireless provider in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, the CRTC’s concern in all this is somewhat narrow. Its permission isn’t needed for a wireless, internet or telephone provider to buy another. (The Competition Bureau and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada will undertake their own proceedings to evaluate those concerns, and their approval is also needed before the transaction can proceed.)

Instead, the CRTC’s permission is only required for the transfer of broadcasting assets. Shaw sold its television and radio assets to Corus in 2016, leaving the following:

  • Its licences for television distribution, including Shaw Cable the Shaw Direct satellite TV service
  • Its licences for community television channels tied to those cable distributors
  • Its licences for video on demand and pay-per-view services tied to those cable distributors (Rogers is not acquiring these as it has its own licences)
  • Its licence for a satellite broadcasting distribution relay service, which provides TV signals to other providers
  • Its stake in CPAC

Competition issues will be brought up in discussion of those points. For example, under this deal Rogers would get two thirds ownership of CPAC, giving it effective control (Videotron, Cogeco and Eastlink are also minority owners).

But an issue that hasn’t gotten much attention (besides from the Globe and Mail and a few others) is what this means for Global News.

You see, back in 2017 when the CRTC decided to screw over community television, it put in place a new subsidy system whereby large TV providers can redirect some of the money they would have spent on community television and instead send it to affiliated local TV stations to use for local news. Rogers could give some money to Citytv, Bell could give some money to CTV, Videotron could give some money to TVA, and Shaw could give some money to Corus. Though Shaw and Corus are separate companies, they are both ultimately controlled by the Shaw family, so for the CRTC’s purposes they’re related.

Once Rogers acquires Shaw, it will take the money that went to Corus for Global News and instead redirect it to Citytv stations.

According to CRTC filings, $8.8 million from Shaw Cable and $4.2 million from Shaw Direct were sent to Global for “locally reflective news programming” in 2019-20, for a total of about $12.9 million. That represents about 12 per cent of the $106 million Corus spent on local news in 2019-20.

That would mean significant cuts to Global News, unless Corus just decides to swallow the loss. Since Global as a whole is unprofitable, that seems unlikely.

It’s worth noting that while Corus has pointed this out in a submission, Corus is not on the agenda to appear at the CRTC hearing. Its owner is more interested in the profits from the sale than Corus’s concerns about local news.

The other fund

Now, because there are some private commercial television stations out there that aren’t owned by large cable companies, the CRTC set up a special fund to help them. The Independent Local News Fund is financed by a 0.3% tax on all licensed TV distributors, and is divided among independent TV stations based on the amount of local news they produce.

Because the Rogers-Shaw deal would orphan Global, it could then apply to the ILNF for funding for local news.

But the ILNF’s total budget is $21 million a year ($3 million of which comes from Shaw), so unless it would be willing to part with half its funding, either Global or the other independent stations (or most likely both) would have to lose a lot of money.

When the CRTC approved the purchase of V by Bell Media, V became ineligible for funding from the ILNF, and so its funding was redistributed among the remaining stations. But V only got about $3.2 million from the fund, so there’s a $10 million gap.

The CRTC set the 0.3% tax based on how television stations were owned at the time. A logical solution would be to increase that tax, but that would require a separate hearing, and either a cut to some other contribution line or an increase in costs to television providers that would then be passed on to customers.

Or Canadians could just accept that independent television gets stuck with a big budget cut because Canada’s second-largest communications company wanted to get bigger.