You know, if I’m going to make fun of V for spelling mistakes, it’s only fair that I point out errors by the networks with higher budgets:
A typo during Le Verdict (Episode 3)
I realize even Habs players can’t spell Cammalleri (and I’m sure it’s been wrong at least a dozen times in my newspaper), but this is Radio-Canada primetime, folks.
UPDATE: A bunch of people have pointed out that Bell also has trouble checking the spelling of “Cammalleri”.
Il n’y aurait plus de fautes de français dans les tableaux et dans les réponses.
Douglas Honegger, of Call-TV, to La Presse’s Hugo Dumas last month, in response to concerns that this awful, ethically questionable pay-to-play lottery show that aired during late nights on TQS might return to making awful gaffes when it returned to the network now called V.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRsOCIhO30o
And this week, they forget how to spell “Lionne”.
You know how they say it’s so bad it’s good? This is worse than that. No wait, it’s even worse than that. It’s so bad, it’s not even the bad that’s worse than bad, it’s so bad people watch it and live-tweet about it to talk about how bad it is.
The CRTC will be holding a hearing this month about community television, and at least one group is hoping they will close loopholes (or even just curb abuses that aren’t even loopholes) that allow cable companies to use these channels as promotional arms.
The CRTC requires cable companies to devote 5% of their gross revenues to Canadian programming. Of that, 2% must go to a community channel, kind of like those “cable access channels” we hear about in the U.S.
Even though it’s a very small fraction of their money, the cable companies decided they would put it to good use. Instead of just giving it over to an independent community broadcaster, they’d run their own community networks. Rogers uses the moniker RogersTV. With Videotron, it’s VOX. Shaw TV, TVCogeco, you get the idea.
The problem with having the cable companies in control is that this can lead to abuses. Rogers is being accused of having too much advertising. Others of not keeping proper records (which, admittedly, is a chronic problem for many low-budget broadcasters).
But the biggest problem seems to be that the programming itself isn’t fulfilling its mandate:
The CRTC audits found that Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, and Persona all classified staff-produced news and other programming-even MTV promos in one instance-as “access programming”. Some Eastlink systems reported no access programming at all.
“The CRTC’s data show that Canada’s ‘community’ channels have become promotional tools for cable companies,” said Catherine Edwards, spokesperson for CACTUS.
A look at VOX, Videotron’s community channel, and you can see what they mean. A show devoted to TVA’s Star Académie. A show put together by a (former) Quebecor-owned weekly newspaper. Quebecor personalities are all over the schedule.
Sure, there’s the “Mise à jour [city name here]”, and the half hour where they show traffic cameras. But I don’t see much access here, nor do they make obvious how someone could get involved.
Perhaps the era of community television is over. We no longer need cable access when we have Internet access. People can just put their videos on YouTube. (Ratings certainly suggest that, with market shares of 0.1 and 0.2%.)
But until the CRTC makes that determination, cable companies should start playing by the rules – the spirit as well as the letter.
UPDATE (May 15): La Presse’s Marc Cassivi also thinks Vox isn’t doing what it should as far as community programming.
Not that I would in any way use this photo to make an unfair generalization about television news reporters…
It’s been suggested to me that V’s website is a bit heavy on the advertising.
I don’t see it, do you?
Pierre-Karl Péladeau, the big cheese behind Quebecor, caused a bit of a stink this week when he wrote an op-ed (published in French in Le Devoir and in English in the Financial Post) attacking the CBC over the fee-for-carriage debate, even though the CRTC has already decided that the CBC shouldn’t be able to charge cable and satellite providers for permission to rebroadcast its signals.
The CBC (or, more accurately, Radio-Canada) has been a bug up Péladeau’s butt for quite a while now. He’s angry that the government-funded broadcaster competes with his privately-run TVA network, and similarly how its all-news network RDI competes with TVA’s all-news network LCN.
It’s not that he doesn’t think there should be a public broadcaster. He just doesn’t want there to be one that competes with the private networks, offering popular programming and in particular taking U.S. programs and re-airing them for profit. The Radio-Canada envisioned by Péladeau is more like CPAC, contributing to the public dialogue but not with anything that people actually want to watch. Certainly nothing anyone would want to pay to advertise on.
In a way, I can see where he’s coming from. Imagine if you ran a business, and next door there’s a competing business that gets heavily subsidized by the government. I’m sure the CBC bosses and supporters have a ready-made retort to attack that comparison (CBC boss Hubert Lacroix touched on some of them in the National Post), but even if it’s not perfect, it still makes a strong point.
If only someone who’s not Pierre-Karl Péladeau (or from some government-hating conservative think-tank) would make it, it might carry more weight.
This week, though, Péladeau added another aspect to his anti-CBC rant:
Furthermore, the CBC has launched the Tou.tv website without consulting the industry, a move that jeopardizes Canada’s broadcasting system by providing free, heavily subsidized television content on the Internet without concern for the revenue losses that may result, not only for the CBC but also for other stakeholders, including writers and directors.
By “without consulting the industry”, he means, well, him. Tou.tv has programming from Télé-Québec, TV5, TFO and others. V and RDS aren’t included, but they have their own websites that provide video on demand.
TVA, meanwhile, doesn’t offer shows on demand online, even those shows that you’d think would get a pretty high audience there. Instead, it offers them on Videotron’s Illico on demand (Videotron, by wacky coincidence, is also owned by Quebecor).
Péladeau argues about “heavily subsidized television content”, which is hardly new to Tou.tv. Somehow, I suspect he might be a bit more angry at the fact that Tou.tv has become popular, and might even become a Québécois Hulu, leaving TVA in the dark.
Mind you, Hulu isn’t making money either.
Eva Markvoort at her laptop in 65_RedRoses
I don’t remember why I originally saw the documentary. Maybe I stumbled across it on Newsworld while looking for something to watch. Maybe someone recommended it on Facebook or Twitter and I watched it online.
It’s called 65_RedRoses, and it’s a documentary about a young Vancouverite named Eva Markvoort. She has cystic fibrosis, a disease that affects the lungs and can stop people from being able to breathe. The documentary, shot by a friend and his film-school partner, chronicles her life as she waits for – and eventually gets – a lung transplant.
Markvoort is an ideal candidate, not only because she’s young, pretty and well-spoken, but because she’s very open. She keeps a blog where she posts thoughts and pictures, and the documentary references and quotes from a bunch of blog posts. Maybe that’s part of the reason it appealed to me.
The key moment in the film comes just after the 20-minute mark, during what seems to be a very boring segment with bad audio in which Eva and her friends head out to the car. Suddenly, there’s a beeping sound, barely discernible on the documentary’s audio track, and Eva goes into shock. Her pager, whose sole function is to alert her when a donor has been found for transplant, is going off. After nine months of keeping this little brick attached to her, nine months of waiting, suddenly she’s getting the call. (It’s interesting to me to go through this blog and see the individual posts referenced – it makes it seem more real somehow.)
What follows is an emotional few minutes in which she’s so nervous she can’t properly dial a phone. Even the filmmakers are nervous. This event wasn’t staged, there was no advance notice. They’d just been following her for so long, capturing so much footage, and suddenly, in October 2007, they hit the jackpot.
I can only admire this from a strictly journalistic perspective. It’s like being at the scene of a car crash with a camera rolling. They didn’t call her after the fact and ask her what it was like. They didn’t re-enact the scene with actors. They were there, and we saw her face while it happened.
It was this shaky, low-audio footage that got the CBC on board to produce this documentary, according to an article in Eye Weekly. It’s easy to understand why. You don’t see such sudden, raw, real emotion very often. The funding led to better production values, including some computer-generated title sequences that unfortunately are a bit lame.
The documentary is a roller-coaster for Eva, her parents and friends – and, naturally, the viewer. She gets better, she gets worse, she gets a transplant, she gets better, she gets worse, she gets better again.
The documentary ends on a happy note. After surviving an early post-transplant scare, Eva recovers and is discharged from the hospital. Slowly, her breathing improves and she’s healthy again.
Another poignant moment happens when Eva participates in a dragon boat race, something she couldn’t do before the transplant. It’s at that point she meets one of her best friends, Kina, who lives in Pennsylvania and also has CF. People with CF aren’t allowed to interact with each other because of the risk of spreading superbugs, as we learn in the documentary. But with the transplant, that’s no longer a worry. Eva loses her composure as she runs to her friend, and before long everyone’s in tears.
It’s 2009, and Eva’s doing great. This 2008 year-in-review post on her blog gives a good idea of what her new life is like (ironically, her posting frequency dropped noticeably as she went out and enjoyed herself). The documentary ends with a happy Eva smiling, optimistic and excited about her future.
Except, not. After the fade to black, text comes on the screen explaining that a few weeks before the documentary aired in November 2009, Eva was back in hospital, suffering from chronic rejection. She was still posting, still doing her best to promote this documentary that stars her, particularly now that it’s gotten this exposure.
Eva Markvoort died last weekend. She was 25. The news came via a brief posting on her blog, a post that now has more than 1,600 comments.
CBC decided to re-air the documentary yesterday on CBC News Network. Kina, Eva’s friend, is trying to get it to air in the United States.
Canadians can watch 65_RedRoses free on the CBC website.
It was supposed to be a quiet night Sunday night. I was on the late shift, which ends when the final edition of the paper gets typeset at 1:30am. With no Habs game and little breaking news, everything was done early. The middle edition was done an astonishing 20 minutes early because we just ran out of stuff to do.
Shortly after midnight, alerts started coming on the news wires: an explosion in the Moscow subway, with dozens possibly dead. Doing the calculation that one dead in Montreal is the equivalent of dozens dead in a European city, which is the equivalent of hundreds dead in China or a third-world country, we start preparing space for a brief about it.
Within minutes, reports of a second explosion at another Moscow subway station. This is terrorism, my colleague tells me. While I can’t imagine any other explanation, I’m not comfortable making that call myself. Still, we scrap a piece about New York rescinding its ban on beekeeping to put the story there, and I work on getting it online.
I put the TV on CNN and … nothing. It’s showing a rerun of Larry King Live (with Ryan Seacrest filling in). MSNBC isn’t showing anything new either. CBC News Network, CTV News Channel, RDI, LCN, all showing recorded programming. The only hint of what has just happened comes on the CNN ticker, inviting us to get more information during American Morning … at 6am, five hours later.
Eventually, CNN cut in briefly with breaking news. Others may have as well while I wasn’t watching. But it was clear they were all going to wait until morning before giving any live information that can’t be fit into the news ticker.
Realizing that I’d forgotten a news channel, I turn to BBC World News. It’s morning there by now (albeit very early morning), and they’re reporting live, even getting analysis from experts on what little information they have.
Apparently, things weren’t much better in Russia itself, where TV news also wasn’t reporting live on the attacks. Only the English-language Russia Today (which I didn’t know about before Sunday night) provided live coverage, and I was quickly streaming it on my computer.
In the end, the stories for online and print were pieced together from reports from various wire services. I finally left for home at 2:30, reminded that while all-news networks say they offer news 24/7, it doesn’t mean their news departments are running at full-steam during all those hours.
So, it’s over. The Local TV Matters folks won. And we, the television consumers, will be the ones who end up paying for it.
OK, it’s not so simple. First, the CRTC’s decision on fee for carriage (I’m sorry, “negotiation for value”, which will mean a fee that we don’t call a fee for some reason) is being referred to a federal court to see if the commission even has the authority to impose it.
And it only applies to the English networks (CTV, Canwest and Rogers), though it will probably be imposed in a similar way for TVA and V.
And the CBC totally got the shaft, which they’re really angry about because they were counting on the CRTC deciding that Canadians should pay for something they’ve already paid for – and includes advertising on top of that.
And if the government isn’t happy with the ruling, it can just override it and impose its own will.
Rogers, like the other cable and satellite companies not named Videotron, is also mad, saying “Canadians lose” in this decision. Cogeco has similar arguments against the decision.
Other, more independent opinions include Don Martin, Andrew Coyne and John Doyle in the “agree” column, and L. Ian Macdonald in the “don’t agree” column.
You can read the full decision here.
Though not a complete victory for conventional television broadcasters, they have a lot to like from this decision. There are some minor changes to Canadian content requirements, more flexibility to transfer funding between conventional and specialty television assets, and the ability to add commercials to video on demand. But the big power the TV networks will have is the power to pull their signals and the programs they have rights to from cable and satellite networks that don’t offer them enough money.
In a system that somewhat mirrors what happens in the U.S., Canadian broadcasters (so far just the big anglo ones, though it’s expected the francophone ones will have a similar system) will have the choice between two options, which they’ll have to stick with for three years at a time:
The key bargaining chip the CRTC throws in to give the broadcasters an edge in the negotiation process is the ability to force cable and satellite companies to block out U.S. programming they own exclusive rights to.
So, for example, if Global Montreal (CKMI) decides that Videotron isn’t paying enough, it can demand not only that Videotron not allow its subscribers to watch Global, but it can demand that Videotron black out House, Heroes, 24, Family Guy and a bunch of other shows on U.S. stations. Ditto CFCF for Grey’s Anatomy or CSI.
Ever try to watch a hockey game on Rogers Sportsnet and get a black screen? Expect to see a lot of that if there’s a fee dispute.
This kind of thing happens in the U.S., though usually it doesn’t last that long as consumers raise bloody hell once their stations go black. Expect no difference here.
As for how much it will cost, that’s up to the broadcasters and cable companies. Some have said $1 a month per station. But it could be anything. It might not even be a fee, but some other form of non-monetary compensation. In the end, assuming the TV networks decide to go the fee route, it will be whatever the market decides.
One thing to note is that another right the broadcasters lose if they decide to demand a fee is the right to mandatory carriage. Ideally, that could mean that individual consumers would be given the right to choose whether or not they want to pay for a certain station. But the requirement to block out U.S. programming probably means that won’t be an option – or at least would make it impractical.
So, instead of being a truly market-based solution (and one which would favour original programming over the import and resale of U.S. shows), the price for local TV will be whatever your cable or satellite company think you’d be willing to pay for hit U.S. shows. And you’ll probably be forced to pay every penny of it, tacked on to your television service bill in big red letters.
If the broadcasters decide to go the blockout-and-blackout method, the question will inevitably come up: Won’t people just go to their website and stream the videos online, or hook up a pair of rabbit ears and watch their station for free over the airwaves?
Here, my mistrust of the big broadcasters leads to some speculative theories. For one thing, since most people with both cable TV and Internet get the two from the same company, the broadcasters could choose to restrict online access. If Videotron won’t pay the fee for CFCF, then CTV.ca could refuse to stream shows to Videotron Internet customers. Or, they could do what Rogers is doing with its on-demand website, and force people to authenticate subscriptions before they have access to online programming.
The CRTC has been hands-off on the Internet (and for good reason), so there’s nothing preventing the broadcasters from doing this.
As for getting programming over the air, a fee dispute would provide ample incentive for broadcasters to cripple or disable their transmitters. CFCF could find itself having sudden “technical difficulties” at its transmitter in the event of a dispute. Global’s CKMI is already putting out so little power as to be difficult to receive even in the Montreal area.
What this could do, though, is boost over-the-air reception for U.S. border stations. If enough Canadians get fed up of their broadcasters trying to bleed them dry, they could install an antenna big (or high) enough to capture U.S. stations.
But, of course, it’s unlikely to get that far. Because, as we all know, television providers and television broadcasters work together for the common good.
Another aspect of the CRTC decision concerns what’s called “priority programming”. This was a provision that required the big broadcasters to devote eight hours a week to expensive dramas, comedies and other scripted programs instead of wasting it on celebrity gossip shows and cheap news.
The CRTC has replaced that with a provision for “programs of national interest”, which include dramas and scripted comedies, but also documentaries and Canadian awards shows.
Yes, awards shows. The CRTC apparently believes that this is a type of programming so in danger that it requires a special status.
The other important part of this change is that instead of being time-based, it’s now revenue-based. They’ll be required to spend 30% of revenues on Canadian programming, and 5% on “programs of national interest”. Because this will be a percentage of revenues instead of a percentage of airtime (though Canadian content in general still has time-based minimums), hopefully this will mean more effort producing better-quality Canadian programming instead of just putting together the cheapest hour of television they can.
On the other hand, it might mean pooling all their money into whatever Toronto-based cop drama they can most easily sell to CBS.
Finally, the CRTC has decreed (with one notable dissenting opinion) that the digital TV transition should continue as scheduled, at least in all major markets. So analog television transmitters in markets of over 300,000 people and provincial and territorial capitals and any market with more than one television station will all have to transition to digital by Aug. 31, 2011.
In its call for comments, the CRTC acknowledged that many Canadians would be adversely affected by this and would need to buy digital converter boxes. But they don’t seem to really care.
I’ve already argued that this is an unnecessary move and will be unnecessarily expensive for both broadcasters and consumers. The reason is simple: The reason for doing this is to liberate TV channels above 52, and conversion to digital is unnecessary to accomplish this goal, because no Canadian market has more than two dozen television stations (including U.S. border stations), which could be reassigned to a lower channel if they’re currently above 52.
But instead of acknowledging that there’s nothing wrong with the way we’ve been broadcasting television since the 1950s, we’re willing to ditch a half-century-old technology and make a lot of people buy a lot of expensive equipment because some regulators think it looks cool.
Announcements came this week about two new specialty channels that will be launched over the next month.
One is Yoopa, a kids’ channel (ages 2-6) that was approved by the CRTC as “TVA Junior”. Quebecor plans to launch it April 1, and it will have some advertising, though not of the traditional kind, says Richard Therrien.
The other is Zeste, a food channel set to launch March 22 by the company behind Évasion.
Both are digital channels and will launch in both standard and high definition.
UPDATE (Feb. 26): The CRTC has also approved TVA Sports, though it refused to step in and force RDS to give up is exclusivity contract with the Canadiens.
Ted Bird
Ted Bird, who left CHOM in January and has been looking for another job since, has picked up a new gig as a weekly sports commentator at CFCF, the station announced today.
Bird, who since leaving the station has started up a personal blog, a Twitter account and a blog for The Gazette, will be offering his take on the world of sports during the Monday newscast at 6pm and 11:30pm (or, more accurately, during Sports Night at 11:45, head honcho Jed Kahane confirms), starting the day after the closing ceremony of the Olympics (March 1).
Stories at CTV and The Gazette.
Here’s the release:
For Immediate Release – Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Bird Lands at CTV
Montreal radio personality jumps from morning drive to supper-hour screen:
CTV is pleased to announce that veteran Montreal morning man Ted Bird is returning to the airwaves as part of the city’s #1 English language Sports team.
Every Monday on CTV News at 6pm & 11:30pm, Ted will weigh in with his ‘Bird’s Eye View’ on the world of sports.
“I’m flattered by CTV’s confidence in me and excited about broadening my broadcast horizons into the television milieu”, said Bird. “I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to reconnect with everyone who’s taken the time to say they miss hearing my voice. Sadly, you now get the face as well”.
“Ted’s quick wit and solid sports analysis have earned him a loyal following with Montrealers”, said Jed Kahane, CTV’s Director of News and Public Affairs. “We’re delighted to be able to get him back on the air with this weekly commentary”.
“Bird’s Eye View” will begin airing on CTV on Monday, March 1st.
UPDATE: Bird tells me this opportunity came through a lunch he had with CFCF veteran Cindy Sherwin, whom he worked with at CJFM way back when. (Let this be a lesson folks: Networking is what gets you jobs.) That led to discussions with Kahane, who decided to bring Bird on.
Bird also recognizes that having a spot on the most-watched anglo newscast in Montreal will give him a lot more exposure than a blog on the Gazette website, and he laments on that blog that he’ll start to be recognized by his face as much as his voice.
UPDATE (Feb. 24): CFCF is running 30-second ads promoting the new segment with Bird walking through Central Station.
Apparently, the CBC News Network today accidentally broadcast 45 minutes of Olympic coverage coast to coast.
Errors happen (especially these days when fewer people are controlling more channels), and though I’m not quite satisfied by the explanation that this was a “technical issue”, what amuses me about this story is the errant headline produced by Canadian Press about it (since corrected), that lets us see which websites don’t even read stories before they’re posted:
Bell TV (formerly Bell ExpressVu) announced on Friday that it will begin offering à la carte packages for customers in Quebec, in an obvious response to Videotron, which already offers à la carte packages.
Here’s a comparison chart to give you an idea of how they match head-to-head on à la carte packages:
| Package | Videotron | Bell TV |
|---|---|---|
| Basic + 15 à la carte | $37 | $40 |
| Basic + 20 à la carte | $39 | $44 |
| Basic + 30 à la carte | $47 | $47 |
| 1 extra channel | $2 | $2 |
| 5 extra channels | $5 | N/A ($2×5=$10) |
| 10 extra channels | $10 | N/A ($2×10=$20) |
| 15 extra channels | N/A ($5+$10=$15) | $15 |
| 20 extra channels | $15 | $19 |
| 30 extra channels | N/A ($10+$15=$25) | $22 |
Both Bell and Videotron tack on a $3 “network access fee” and a 1.5% LPIF fee, neither of which are included in their advertised prices (and aren’t included in this table). None of the prices include installation, equipment rental, or bundle rebates (which is why Bell’s basic rates are $10 more than advertised).
It’s no coincidence that Bell’s basic + 30 is the same price as Videotron’s, that’s the whole point behind Bell’s offering, which is only available in Quebec. People in Ontario who might want to benefit from this aren’t allowed to for no good reason other than Bell is better able to screw them over.
CBC asked the Competition Bureau about this obviously targetted pricing, but they said it would actually increase competition between Bell and Videotron in Quebec, and be good for consumers here. That’s true, but it’s obviously unfair to consumers in Ontario and elsewhere who won’t have à la carte packages for the sole reason that Bell doesn’t have a competitor in those areas willing to offer that option.
The CRTC should look into this, and consider requiring direct-to-home satellite providers to give the same options to customers in all areas unless provincial or local regulations make different demands.
UPDATE: Elias Makos points out something I hadn’t noticed: Bell excludes a number of popular channels from its à la carte offering, including CNN, A&E, TLC, MuchMusic and Teletoon. You have to get a separate package for that.
In related news, Bell will also be offering remote DVR programming using Sling Media technology. This will be useful for people who forget to set their DVR to record a show while they’re gone – now they can go online and remotely program it from the office or wherever they are.
The big change for one half of the Canwest empire now has a roadmap: Canwest announced this morning that Shaw Communications would buy a 20% equity interest and 80% controlling interest in Canwest Global once the company emerges from creditor protection.
Coverage at The Globe and Mail (of course, with analysis and more analysis), CBC, Reuters, Canadian Press, Wall Street Journal and Financial Post. Though financial terms won’t be disclosed until after regulatory approval, Shaw is spending at least $65 million on this acquisition.
Canwest Limited Partnership, which owns the National Post, Montreal Gazette, Canada.com and other publishing assets, is unaffected by this. They will still be auctioned off as part of their restructuring.
Assuming the deal goes through (and there’s no big reason to believe it won’t), the Shaw family will have control over a worryingly large number of specialty channels in Canada. They have a controlling interest in Corus Entertainment, a company spun off from Shaw to get around a CRTC rule about cable companies owning specialty services – a rule that no longer exists.
Corus owns or has a majority interest in (copy-pasted from Wikipedia):
It also has a 50% share with Astral of the Teletoon channels.
Canwest owns – and Shaw would get:
And the former Alliance Atlantis channels through a deal with Goldman Sachs:
Add to all this minority stakes in mentv, One, Historia and Séries +, and you’ve got a pretty huge specialty empire here, 31 channels. That would put it ahead of CTVglobemedia’s 29 channels, and way ahead of other specialty players Astral Media (9 plus The Movie Network and Super Écran), Quebecor Media (8) and Rogers (6).
It should go without saying that the specialty assets – and not the Global Television Network – are why Shaw is interested in this acquisition.
The release says that Shaw would operate Canwest as a standalone company (instead of, say, just taking its assets and giving them to Corus), but you have to think that some sort of consolidation is going to happen if they can get it past the CRTC.
Another (albeit minor) question is what happens to the few conventional TV stations that Shaw and Corus own. Shaw owns CJBN in Kenora, Ont. (a station with the distinction of being Canada’s lowest-powered non-repeater, at 178 Watts), which is currently a CTV affiliate. Corus, meanwhile, owns CKWS Kingston and CHEX Peterborough in eastern Ontario, both of which carry CBC programming. None of the three stations are in cities with Global stations, so it’s conceivable they could all become Global affiliates or even sold to Canwest and become Global owned and operated stations.
My favourite part of this story comes out of a quote from Canwest chairman Derek Burney (emphasis mine): “We look forward to benefitting from Shaw’s participation in a reinvigorated Canwest, as it is a strong business partner with a proven commitment to the Canadian television broadcasting industry. This significant investment in conventional television should be seen as a big vote of confidence in the industry and its future.”
Of course, Shaw and Canwest have been on the opposite side of the ugly fee-for-carriage debate, with each side spouting half-truths at each other in a bid to scumsuck public support.
Remember those “cable company cash cows”? Funny how useful one of them has suddenly become now that the TV company needs a bailout.
But as much as this is ironic for the Local TV Matters people, it also forces Shaw to prove its point about how conventional television isn’t in need of financial support from cable and satellite companies.
Last year, after Shaw sarcastically offered to buy three stations from CTV for $1, and CTV sarcastically accepted, it later pulled away from the deal, claiming that due dilligence showed the stations were hollowed out shells and work had been outsourced to other stations.
Shaw can’t make that excuse this time. While many Global stations are little more than a newsroom, a couple of editing suites and a green screen, Shaw gets the broadcast centres that control them, and can do with them as they wish.
So will Shaw back down from its tough talk about fee for carriage? Will Canwest pull out of the Local TV Matters group, stuck in the same awkward position as CityTV and TVA where the parent company cares more about protecting cable profits than local television?
We’ll find out within the next few months. (Though by the time Shaw’s acquisition is final, the fee for carriage debate might be over.)
UPDATE: The Financial Post explores a big thorn in the side of this deal: Goldman Sachs, which is still fighting with Canwest over the company that owns the former Alliance Atlantis channels.
Canwest has released the results of a study that seeks to measure specialty television channels by quality rather than quantity of ratings. Instead of just pure viewer numbers, it seeks to rank networks by how attentive their viewers are, and how likely they are to pay attention to ads.
A cynic might notice that Canwest-owned networks, including Food Network, HGTV, History Television, Showcase (and its sister networks), National Geographic, Mystery TV and TVtropolis, improve their scores under this measurement. Under pure ratings, only one Canwest network (HGTV) comes in the top five, and only three (with History and Showcase) in the top 10. In the other metrics shown, Canwest networks have 2-3 of the top five and 4-6 of the top 10.
That cynic might wonder if Canwest would have released this study if Canwest-owned networks hadn’t fared so well.
