Tag Archives: CTV

| Opinion, TV

Battle of the fee-for-carriage misinformation campaigns

The battle for “fee for carriage” – forcing cable and satellite TV providers to hand over money to over-the-air broadcasters – is getting ugly.

A few weeks after CTV got Global and the CBC to join its “Save Local TV” campaign (now rebranded “Local TV Matters“), Bell (which owns the largest satellite TV provider) and Rogers (which owns Rogers Cable) have launched the counter-campaign Stop the TV Tax. Both websites feature “facts” pages with incredibly misleading arguments and statistics about the business model of television, and both are racing against the clock to get people to support their side in upcoming CRTC hearings on the fee for carriage issue.

Notably absent from either side is Quebecor, which owns the TVA television network (and Sun TV station in Toronto) but also the Videotron cable service. CityTV, the other notable absence on the broadcaster side, is owned by Rogers, which has clearly picked the other side in this debate.

The “TV tax” website has prompted CTVGlobeMedia to respond by calling it “misinformation”, while in the same release saying that cable companies are charging Canadians for conventional television, which is demonstrably false.

While CTV et al’s claims are suspect, the Rogers and Bell throw up some doozies of their own, including fantom quotes saying incorrectly that this is a “one time” fee. Except nobody said fee for carriage would be a one-time fee, and the website provides no source for this supposed quote. They also claim that conventional broadcasters had profits of $400 million last year, but the CRTC put that number at only $8 million (down from over $100 million) when it released statistical data in February. (UPDATE Oct. 6: I asked the Stop the TV Tax people about this, and they pointed to a Canwest quarterly report and an opinion piece about CTV, neither of which break down profit by conventional vs. specialty channels, and on Global’s side the operating profit for its non-Alliance-Atlantis TV network – which still includes a half-dozen cable channels like MovieTime and TVtropolis – was about $40 million)

When it comes to choosing between greedy broadcasters and greedy cable and satellite companies, most informed Canadians would prefer to choose neither. These slick (and expensive) lobbying campaigns – just think of how much they’re spending to lobby the CRTC directly if they’re spending this much on us – only reinforces the fact that both sides have plenty of money to spare.

| Opinion, TV, Video

CKX, the TV station nobody wanted

The final moments of CKX-TV (the complete newscast starts here).

The news came suddenly: Bluepoint Investment Corporation said on Thursday that it would back out of a deal to buy CKX-TV in Brandon, Man., from CTV. CTV, which had threatened the station with closure if it couldn’t find a buyer, didn’t waste any time, announcing that Friday’s newscast would be its last and the station would go off the air at 7 p.m. All 39 employees are now unemployed, and the community of Brandon is left without a local commercial television station (only the cable community channel, and a community station in nearby Neepawa). While the Brandon Sun still provides reporting for the community, television news for the entire province of Manitoba now originates from Winnipeg.

The news is devastating and humiliating for CKX, which had been a pawn in a bad-faith sarcastic deal negotiated by way of newspaper advertisement between CTV and Shaw. The latter said it would buy the station and two others from CTV for $1 to convince the CRTC that local television did indeed have a profitable future. Then, when Shaw took a look at the stations, it decided it wasn’t such a good investment after all.

In July, the station’s hopes were raised again when Bluepoint came on the scene, with what seemed like a more serious offer (though for the same nominal amount of $1). But Bluepoint has come to the same realization as Shaw: small-market TV stations aren’t worth it.

Bluepoint’s official excuse is that they couldn’t get carriage guarantees from satellite companies, and since most people in the area get their TV that way, they desperately needed that. I’ll leave it as an exercise for readers to determine how much of the decision was satellite coverage and how much was Bluepoint realizing the true economics of conventional TV.

So CKX is off the air, its website replaced with a thank you message and a link to CTV’s “Local TV Matters” site (as if a message to everyone that more stations will fall unless local TV is saved). CTV had two stories on the closure, both of which mention the larger issue of conventional television and fee-for-carriage.

For those keeping score, here’s how the CTV and Canwest stations threatened with closure this year stand:

That’s three stations sold, two kept running and three shut down.

You may not agree with fee for carriage, or that the conventional television model is even broken, but small-market stations are closing down, and nobody is moving in to even rescue them from the trash heap.

CKX logo

| Opinion, TV

Global, CBC join CTV’s “Save Local TV” campaign

A few months into its campaign to “Save Local Television”, CTV has managed to get its competitors CBC and Global to join its rebranded campaign “Local TV Matters” (there’s even a Twitter account!), trying to get public support for CRTC regulatory changes that would allow conventional television stations to charge cable and satellite companies for distribution of their signals.

The website’s FAQ lists PR-generated counter-arguments to some common complaints, but seems to ignore the history of conventional television and why it’s free in the first place.

Decades ago, before there was cable, conventional television was all there is. Most stations were locally-owned and had powerful transmitters to reach as many homes as possible. Revenue came from advertising, which was fine because everyone watched TV in primetime, and everyone watched the local news.

In the early days of cable, the specialty channels were low-budget affairs and highly specialized. Music videos on MuchMusic, live sports on TSN, non-stop weather updates on the Weather Network. Quality primetime programming came from the conventional networks like CTV, which was back then a cooperative of local stations. Local programming gave way to network (Canadian and U.S.) shows in primetime, but mornings and early evenings were still largely local affairs.

Canadian television network breakdown

The proliferation of specialty channels is a large part of why conventional television isn’t what it used to be. The audience is fragmented, and the conventional networks’ piece of the pie has diminished, along with advertising.

Specialty networks don’t have to provide local programming, though on the other hand they cannot accept local advertising and they cannot transmit over the air.

Now that more than 90% of Canadians have cable or satellite service, the advantage of over-the-air transmitters is outweighed by their cost. And because most advertising is national in scope, and targetted to specific demographics that specialty channels are better at reaching, that advantage too has disappeared.

What’s left to give conventional television stations an advantage is the programming itself. But while many people still watch the news, it’s not enough to pay for it. In very few markets does local news attract enough advertising revenue to pay for itself. So those newscasts (especially in smaller markets) have been drastically cut. Local news has been replaced by more pre-packaged news packages from the networks. Programming outside of the local newscasts has been all but eliminated.

So what can we do about this? Should we just shut down the conventional networks? Obviously the networks don’t agree with that idea, because conventional television is still making them money.

How about a government bailout? Consumers would be opposed to that, and it creates all sorts of problems (should broadcasters be paid equally, or based on the ratings of their newscasts?). Besides, there already is one in the form of the Local Programming Improvement Fund, a 1.5% tax on cable and satellite companies’ revenues that goes to help programming in small-market stations.

What CTV et al are proposing is that broadcasters and distributors negotiate a fair market value for carrying their stations. It’s not entirely clear what the details are, such as whether consumers would be able to choose which conventional television stations they would pay for (they could pay for none of them and just hook up the rabbit ears to get them free), or whether they would be forced to pay for them like we’re forced to pay for CBC Newsworld and CPAC whether we want to or not (such mandatory carriage would leave cable and satellite companies without a bargaining chip, making negotiation difficult).

It’s the economics, stupid

The networks’ prime argument in launching this campaign is this:

One of the campaign’s concerns is that cable and satellite providers continue to charge viewers for our services, yet they pay nothing to local television stations. However, Canadian cable companies pay U.S. cable channels in excess of $300 million a year for their services, and these cable channels are not required to produce any Canadian content. The campaign members are standing up to change this system because they believe local stations deserve fairness so viewers can continue to enjoy local television programming now and in the years to come.

The argument about channels like Spike and CNN not producing Canadian content is valid. Of course, the CRTC takes this into consideration when approving a U.S. channel for distribution here. U.S. networks aren’t allowed to compete with Canadian ones on (basic) cable, which is why we didn’t have MTV to compete with MuchMusic or HBO to compete with the Movie Network until Canadian versions of those channels launched recently.

But the comparison to conventional television is based on a faulty assumption. People don’t pay for conventional television stations as part of their cable bills. People get cable because they want CNN and Spike, not the local news. The bills for basic service cover the physical cable service as well as CRTC-mandated specialty channels like Newsworld and CPAC. Cable and satellite companies don’t charge consumers to give them local television stations, because you can’t charge people for something they already get for free.

The big irony of the argument is that the CRTC mandates that cable and satellite companies distribute local television stations as part of their basic service at the request of those television stations. In cable’s infancy, local TV wanted to be on cable to reach larger markets and get more advertising revenue. They even got the CRTC to guarantee they’d get the lowest spots on the dial, which back then were considered prime electronic real estate.

But I understand times change. Things are different now, the model is broken.

At least, they say the model is broken. CTV and Global haven’t released detailed financial reports showing how much money they’re losing on conventional television (or if they’re losing any at all). We have only their self-serving word to go on here.

The CRTC will be debating the future of local television in November.

Comments enabled

A side note about the “Local TV Matters” campaign: the website (which is WordPress-based) has open comments on its posts, and there’s already a lot of them from incredulous consumers asking why they’re being asked to pay more when their local programming is being cut to the bone. I’m a bit surprised the comments are still up there, and wonder what it will take for them to shut down dissenting consumer opinion.

| Montreal, Radio, TV

CRTC Roundup: They saved local TV!

Well, not quite.

The CRTC on Monday decided to hike the fee (temporarily, at least) for its Local Programming Improvement Fund from 1% to 1.5% of cable and satellite provider revenues (revenues, not profits), which would give broadcasters an additional $32 million a year ($100 million total in the new fund) to devote to local programming.

You can see all its arguments in the official decision. It’s less than the 2.5% that a parliamentary committee suggested in June.

It’s a victory for broadcasters and a defeat for cable and satellite companies (and probably consumers). CBC is happy. Canwest is happy. CTV is happy. Bell is sad. Cogeco is sad (PDF). Rogers is sad. Videotron is sad. Bill Brioux is annoyed.

Especially when you consider how much the television industry is already subsidized through mandatory fees from cable and satellite companies (now 6.5% of their revenues) and funding from the government, all without us having a say in programming, you have to wonder whether it’s all worth it.

Best of all, the broadcasters say they need more.

The CRTC also released its conditions of license for one-year renewals for the major networks:

Many of the decisions below come from these renewals.

Finally, the CRTC has kicked the fee-for-carriage can (which was in turn kicked to them by a parliamentary committee) and other issues down the road to a hearing in September, where it will discuss that and other issues affecting broadcast television. The indication, however, is that the CRTC supports a fee-for-carriage idea, provided the fees are negotiated with broadcasters and cable/satellilte companies.

Harmonized local programming minimums

And how much more local programming will we be getting for all this extra money? We won’t! In fact, we’re getting less! Thanks to new “harmonized” minimum requirements, most stations in the country will now have to produce less local programming.

For English-language stations, the minimums will be 14 hours a week for large markets (Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Vancouver), and seven hours a week for smaller markets (including Halifax, Hamilton and Victoria), with some exceptions. This will mean reductions for CKMI (18 hours a week) and CFCF (15.5 hours a week). Stations with really high requirements might see massive cuts and layoffs. CHCH Hamilton, for example, has dropped from 36.5 hours to only seven, though they’re going to make a go at more local programming, at least in the short term.

For French-language stations (effectively just TVA since TQS has a special exception), it’s on a case-by-case basis:

  • CFCM (Quebec City): 18 hours a week, down from 21
  • CFER (Rimouski): 5 hours a week, up from 3:10
  • CJPM (Chicoutimi): 5 hours a week, up from 3:10
  • CHLT (Sherbrooke): 5 hours a week, up from 3:10

Independent stations owned by Radio-Nord (TVA Gatineau) and Télé Inter-Rives (SRC/TVA/TQS in Rivière du Loup, TVA in Carleton) maintain their current requirements.

Note that for French markets, only Montreal is larger than a million and is ineligible for LPIF funding.

In the same decision, the CRTC also rejected requests from broadcasters to eliminate requirements for priority programming (expensive dramas) and independent production (as opposed to in-house).

Global Quebec is now Global Montreal

After again rejecting union complaints that Global’s produced-out-of-Vancouver plan violates local programming requirements for Global Quebec (not saying it wasn’t in violation, only that there is “insufficient evidence” and it will “continue to monitor the situation”), the CRTC has approved a request to change CKMI from a Quebec City-based regional station to a local Montreal-based station.

CKMI-TV was once based in our provincial capital, but since it was purchased by Canwest and turned into a Global station it has effectively been headquartered in Montreal, with retransmitters in Quebec City and Sherbrooke (technically, the transmitter was in Quebec with a retransmitter, CKMI-TV-1, in Montreal). Global Quebec was licensed as a regional station, which meant it couldn’t take any local Montreal advertising. The license change makes it a local station which opens up that door (as small as it is) and allows the station to compete directly with CFCF and CBMT for local advertising.

A similar move was made for CIII, which is de facto Global’s Toronto station but was technically licensed to Paris, Ontario, which is west of Hamilton.

CJNT keeps ethnic minimum

A request from Canwest to relieve money-losing ethnic station CJNT Montreal of its ethnic programming requirement was denied. Canwest wanted 5 hours a week, but will be stuck at the original 13.5. Since the station is being sold, it won’t sadden Canwest too much to lose this battle.

Mandatory digital transition (or not?)

The CRTC recognized that some broadcasters are lagging behind in transitioning to digital. U.S. broadcasters were forced to make the switch last month (in a deadline that was delayed from February), but Canadians have until August 2011. The CRTC’s decision doesn’t suggest that this deadline will change for smaller markets (though it suggests perhaps a “hybrid model” may emerge), but it does say it “expects” that major markets will make the transition. It released a list of markets larger than 300,000 it “expects” will do so without complaint, and says it will discuss the issue further in September. The list includes Montréal, Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, Rivière-du-Loup, Saguenay, Ottawa-Gatineau, territorial and provincial capitals and large cities across Canada. Essentially any market with more than one station.

The issue (which also includes whether there should be U.S.-style subsidies for converter boxes) will be dealt with again in September.

CTV-Shaw rejects get renewed

Even though Shaw’s offer to buy them has fallen through, the CRTC has renewed licenses for CKX-TV in Brandon, Man., CHWI-TV in Wheatley/Windsor, Ont., and CKNX-TV in Wingham, Ont., for another year, despite CTV’s request that they be terminated. They’re still expected to shut down in August, although CTV says it is “reviewing” CHWI in light of the new funding. UPDATE: CTV says it will continue operating CHWI until Aug. 31, 2010. CKNX will be converted into a retransmitter, and CKX is still being shut down.

Other CTV stations which had the bare minimum of local programming have been relicensed as strictly retransmitters only:

  • CKCO-TV-3 Oil Springs (Sarnia), Ont.
  • CFRN-TV-3 Whitecourt, Alta.
  • CFRN-TV-4 Ashmont, Alta.
  • CFRN-TV-6 Red Deer, Alta.

No copy-copy

Separate requests from Canwest and Rogers to allow them to duplicate content on E!/Global and City/OMNI respectively were denied by the CRTC. The stations (CHAN-TV Vancouver/CHEK-TV Victoria, CIII-TV Toronto/CHCH-TV Hamilton, and City/OMNI pairings in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver) are currently limited to 10% overlap since they are stations with the same owner in the same markets. Requests to be relieved of that restriction were denied.

City stays special

In addition to allowing more overlap between City and OMNI, Rogers asked to be allowed to redirect “priority programming” money (money for expensive Canadian dramas) into local programming, and remove an unusual requirement at City to air Canadian feature films. Both were denied. The Globe has a story.

CHOI News Talk?

RNC Media has applied to the CRTC for a license amendment for CHOI-FM in Quebec City, which would change it from an alternative rock format to 50% spoken word. CHOI has a rather rocky past with the CRTC.

Radio was doing OK last year

The CRTC has released financial statistics of Canadian radio stations (taken as a whole). Looking at all of Canada and Quebec in particular, the numbers are fairly stable on both sides of the balance sheet. Of particular note is AM radio in Quebec, which shows significant losses year after year while the rest of the country just about breaks even.

Asians Asians Asians!

Asian Television Network has gotten approval for a slew of new specialty channels:

Another two networks – ATN Multicultural Channel and Commonwealth Broadcasting Network – were denied, as their nature was judged to be too broad for a specialty service.

ATN announced on Tuesday that nine channels, including some of the ones above, will premiere on Rogers Cable in the fall. The channels are being renamed to more interesting names.

CHEAR!

Ultimate Indie Productions has received authorization to start a specialty channel devoted to emerging Canadian Artists called CHEAR! (and CHEAR! HD)

Ashes to ashes, SCREAM to DUSK

Corus is rebranding its SCREAM! horror channel to DUSK, and expanding its niche to include “paranormal” and “supernatural” stuff that might not be so scary. I guess this means more X-Files? The change takes effect on Sept. 9 (09/09/09, as if that’s scary or paranormal or something).

In other news

  • TVA got a slap on the wrist (hell, not even that) for failing to meet expectations regarding airing of Canadian films and closed-captioning. The CRTC “expects” they’ll meet those requirements in the future, or else they’re going to get a sternly-worded letter, I guess.
  • The Globe and Mail is reporting that Al-Jazeera English may be close to approval as a specialty channel.
  • CPAC has gotten approval for a license amendment that would allow it to broadcast non-CPAC-sounding stuff like music on Canada Day every year. Now it can let loose in an explosion of patriotism on July 1.
  • Vision TV has given up and is now asking viewers to figure out its programming.
  • Cogeco has asked to move its transmitter for CFGE-FM (Rhythme FM) in Sherbrooke and increase its transmitter power to improve reception.
  • MusiquePlus has gotten authorization to hand over its 3.4% of revenues required for the production of Canadian music videos to MaxFACT instead of VideoFACT. The difference is mainly that MaxFACT is what MusiMax gives its money to and this would simplify things for them. The request got an intervention from ADISQ which was concerned that there would be less money for youth-oriented music videos as well as those from Quebec anglophones. MusiquePlus responded that it has no control over the procedures used by MaxFACT to allocate it money.
  • The CRTC is mad at CHRC in St. Catharines for violating a number of conditions of its license. There is, of course, no actual penalty associated with such violations as long as you promise not to do it again.
  • The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has dismissed a complaint against CJMF-FM in Quebec City regarding a promotion related to driving while on a cellphone. The CBSC concluded that the station was not, in fact, advocating that people drive while illegally talking on a cellphone without a hands-free device.
| Opinion, TV

MJTV

CTV is planning two hours of coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial service Tuesday afternoon, cutting out regular daytime programming. That’s nothing compared to the hours upon hours of coverage planned for CTV News Channel, MuchMusic, CP24 and other CTV-owned networks.

Could you imagine such a thing being done for a Canadian celebrity? It certainly wasn’t done for Romeo Leblanc, a former governor general. Or this kind of special-event programming on any kind of local level? Except for elections, local stations haven’t cut into programming since the Dawson shootings in 2006.

| TV

Shaw renegs on promise to save TV stations

Hey, remember a couple of months ago when Shaw said it would buy three endangered CTV-owned stations for $1 each in what seemed like the most insincere offer in the history of mankind?

Yeah, turns out it was a giant bluff. After going over the books for the three stations, Shaw determined that they are, indeed, losing quite a bit of money and it’s not worth the CRTC brownie points and good PR to sink more cash into the stations. CTV issued a brief statement Tuesday afternoon saying Shaw reneged. Media outlets have repeated the statement, but Shaw and CTV aren’t commenting further yet, and the stations can’t comment because they don’t know what’s going on.

This comes (coincidentally?) on the same day Canwest announced it will offload two stations onto Channel Zero.

So CKX-TV in Brandon, Man., CHWI-TV in Wheatley (Windsor), Ont., and CKNX-TV in Wingham, Ont., go back to being endangered and unless another buyer can be lined up they won’t last past the summer.

The optimism they had when the deal was announced now flies right out the window.

UPDATE: Canadian Press is the only outlet that finally tracks Shaw down to get comment. They say they expected real television stations but saw hollowed-out shells where much of the work was done in London and Toronto. Meanwhile, CTV says it will keep CHWI running for another year after getting more money from the CRTC.

| Opinion, TV

If you were a journalist now, what would you have done that Mr. Murphy has not done?

It was underhanded, mean-spirited, even arguably discriminatory. CTV executives decided to air the raw tape of an interview between ATV host Steve Murphy and then-Liberal leader Stéphane Dion in which Dion has trouble understanding a grammatically confusing question. The network said it was because it had news value, but in reality it was because it wanted to make Dion look bad.

The move backfired, with public opinion turning against CTV. And now the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has agreed, with two separate rulings that the network violated the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics. (Two panels were actually convened, one regional panel to deal with the CTV Atlantic airing, and a specialty channel panel to deal with the Mike Duffy CTV NewsNet rebroadcast later that evening.)

Coverage from CP and Canwest. Still waiting for a news outlet that actually bothers to link to the decisions. Also no peep from CTV so far.

The decisions basically rule that Murphy’s question was poorly worded, that the network should not have aired the outtakes after promising not to do so, that airing them was unfair to Dion, and that his restarts were not newsworthy enough to justify their airing.

I find myself mostly agreeing with the analysis of the council, though their analysis of Murphy’s grammar is thorough to the point of absurdity.

The specialty channel panel wasn’t unanimous, with two members providing a dissenting opinion that favoured CTV. CTV’s arguments shouldn’t be dismissed here – they argue that restarts like these are rare, even in live-to-tape interviews like this one, and that it should be up to CTV, not the council, to decide what is newsworthy, especially when it comes to the most important interview a newscaster can give – a candidate for prime minister during an election campaign.

One argument that CTV didn’t make which I’ll add is that the question Dion was asked is textbook to the point of being cliché: What would you have done as prime minister? And politicians with even a moderate amount of public exposure should know how to bullshit their way to the next question if they don’t understand it (or don’t have the answer). Had Dion just picked an interpretation of his choosing instead of asking for clarification multiple times, this would never have happened.

But that doesn’t change the fact that CTV said it wouldn’t air the outtakes, and acted in a way that made it clear to Dion they wouldn’t be aired. Dion took advantage of an opportunity, and then got a knife stabbed in his back for his trouble.

UPDATE (June 2): ProjetJ looks at the differences between the CBSC and the Quebec Press Council. The latter has been losing members who also belong to the former (arguing they shouldn’t have to belong to two organizations that do the same thing). It also suggests the press council is more secretive, making its decisions anonymously.

| Montreal, Photos, TV

Inside CFCF 12

Except, they don’t call it CFCF-12 anymore. They call it “CTV Montreal”, in order to comply with the “CTV [Name of city]” naming convention imposed by national office. Neither do they call their newscast “Pulse”, because CTV wants it called “CTV News” (or, if you must, “CTV News Montreal”). And other than the newscast, which runs 19 times a week, there is no other programming produced at 1205 Papineau Avenue.

It's not exactly a velvet rope, but it contains the crowd.

It's not exactly a velvet rope, but it contains the crowd.

But when CTVglobemedia told its local stations that they were opening their doors on Saturday, I joined a few young aspiring journalists for a tour of the station, my first time setting foot in the building.

Continue reading →

| Opinion, TV

Rogers et al pissed at CTV “Save Local Television” campaign

One-sided ad from CTV Atlantic

One-sided ad from CTV Atlantic

If you haven’t caught CTV’s “Save Local Television” ads recently, you haven’t been watching television. CTV has blanketed its stations, the A television network as well as specialty channels like the Comedy Network and Space with these advertisements that predict a doomsday scenario for local television and demonize the cable and satellite companies for “taking our programming” and “giving nothing in return” (as if this arrangement benefits solely the cable companies at the expense of local broadcasters, and as if the cable companies are selling DVDs of Corner Gas).

The cable and satellite companies have responded with a giant STFU, and issued a press release saying they’re complaining to the CRTC that CTV is breaching the public trust with this one-sided campaign that is a “blatant violation of journalistic principles.” (More coverage from CTV-owned Globe and Mail, Canwest/Global-owned Financial Post, CBC-owned CBC.ca and non-profit cooperative Canadian Press)

You see, not only is CTV running these ads all over the place, it’s enlisting the help of its journalists to spread its message. Ridiculously one-sided news reports from CTV Atlantic, CTV Winnipeg, CTV Toronto and A Barrie simply throw journalism out the window. In all but the one case, no attempt whatsoever is made to get comment from cable and satellite companies. The exception, in the CTV Atlantic report, includes a 10-second clip in a two-and-a-half-minute report whose bias is evident when the reporter talks about broadcasters wanting “equal treatment”.

CP24 (which is owned by CTV) has a fluff interview with CTV Executive Vice-President of Corporate Affairs Paul Sparkes in which he crosses the line from misleading to outright lie, saying cable and satellite companies are “taking our programs, repackaging them, selling them to the consumer, making a profit, and paying us nothing.” Local television feeds are not “repackaged”, but passed through directly to consumers. Sparkes also dismisses an actual question about fee for carriage lobbed at him from his reporter.

This report from Graham Richardson is a bit more balanced, in that he actually talked to a Rogers VP without systematically picking apart everything he says. It is the exception, unfortunately.

CTV Montreal enlisted the help of the premier, although Jean Charest doesn’t specifically state that he supports a mandatory fee for carriage. (He also talks of how important local television is to his home town of Sherbrooke, even though it has no local anglo television station.)

Right of response

In response to the complaint, CTV issued a press release blasting Rogers as “underhanded” (at the same time arguing that discussions shouldn’t happen via press release).

Its only comment about the attacks on its journalistic integrity came from this paragraph:

Indeed, consistent with CTV’s efforts to provide balanced coverage of the issues surrounding the crisis in local television, CTV once again invites representatives from Rogers, Bell, TELUS, Cogeco, Eastlink and the CCSA to participate in tomorrow’s nationwide events.

I can only assume this means CTV reporters will only talk to cable and satellite companies about this issue if they send a representative to CTV’s political rallies on a Saturday to be heckled by a public that has only been told one side of an issue. That doesn’t sound particularly “balanced” to me.

Despite this, Shaw once again called CTV’s bluff, and Ken Stein, the senior vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs at Shaw Cable, agreed to an interview with CTV NewsNet’s Jacqueline Milczarek. Milczarek argued with him (politely) for more than six minutes, a huge contrast from the softball questions given to CTV executives.

Stein also appeared opposite CTV’s David Goldstein to debate the issue on an Alberta program, which went on for a respectable 14 minutes. Sadly, the debaters weren’t as respectable, accusing the other of misleading people. In short, Shaw says it produces local programming through cable access channels, while CTV argues (correctly) that those channels are financed entirely out of a CRTC-mandated fund. CTV argues that Shaw et al are stealing their programming and pirating it to viewers, and incredulously accuses Shaw of using “scare tactics” in this campaign (you know, the one in which CTV is using a heart monitor metaphor to say local TV will “disappear forever” if fee for carriage isn’t enacted).

The network also finally got some smart analysts on. Eamon Hoey looked at the larger picture, taking a dim view of fee for carriage, and got hounded by Milczarek. Carleton University’s Christopher Waddell also pointed out how CTV isn’t telling all sides of this story, and also got treated with skepticism.

Don’t get me wrong, these interviews with Milczarek are what journalists are supposed to be doing: getting people to answer tough questions. But compared to the fluff interviews about open houses with CTV executives, it seems clear that CTV is using its journalists to advocate for a cause, being soft on their bosses and tough on their competition.

Breach of trust

CTV is grossly abusing its public trust by forcing its journalists to participate in what is essentially a political campaign. Television viewers have the right to be fully informed about all sides to this issue and CTV is systematically denying them that right.

Of course, the fact that local CTV stations are owned by a giant conglomerate that puts profit above everything else and is pretending to care about local television to manipulate the public is the problem in the first place, isn’t it?

What’s even sadder is that it takes another group of giant corporate conglomerates protecting their own bottom lines to bring this problem to light. If a solution was proposed that benefitted both private broadcasters and cable and satellite companies at the expense of television viewers, who would be there to look out for us?

I’m going to CTV Montreal’s open house today. I’m pessimistic about their chances of convincing me to accept their corporate manifesto, but it’s a good chance to explore the station.

| Montreal, Opinion, TV

CTV wants you to help save [insert local station name here]

Todd Van der Heyden wants to show you inside CTV Montreal

Todd Van der Heyden wants to show you inside CTV Montreal

CTV has gone on the offensive in its campaign to “save local television” by forcing cable companies through legislation to give them money. Ads have already started appearing on TV, and a website and online petition has been setup to get people to tell their MPs to approve a “fee for carriage” scheme that would give CTV, Global, Rogers and other conventional television broadcasters hundreds of millions of dollars, with very vague ideas of where that money would actually go.

I’m still kind of on the fence about fee for carriage or related schemes. On one hand, I agree that it’s unfair for cable broadcasters to be able to charge subscription fees and get advertising revenues while spending little money on original programming (and no expensive local programming whatsoever). I also think cable and satellite distributors like Videotron and Bell have profit margins that are way too high and more of that money should be going either to the broadcasters or back in the pockets of consumers.

On the other hand, as a consumer, I object to the idea that I could be forced to pay for a signal I get over the air for free. It’s like adding a surcharge on an air conditioning bill for the oxygen. My cable company doesn’t “take” or “sell” CFCF programming, it simply retransmits the station’s signal to my television set (should broadcasters also demand fees from antenna manufacturers?) And my solution to the disparity between cable channels and conventional broadcasters would have more to do with eliminating cable subscription fees altogether, except for channels like HBO that provide a large amount of original programming.

What is “local television”?

Besides, what exactly are we saving when we talk about saving local television anyway? There is no local television production besides the newcasts anymore, at least not in Montreal. Where once you could count on your local station to carry the Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day parades live, now they produce five-minute packages for the evening news. Current affairs, entertainment, consumer affairs and other programming has been merged into mid-day and weekend newscasts on shoestring budgets. Even local sports teams can’t get their games televised on local TV. They have to hope they can get a spot on the schedule of TSN, RDS or Rogers SportsNet.

So when we’re talking about “local television”, what we’re really talking about is “local newscasts.” That’s not necessarily so bad. Local newscasts are the most important part of local television, and it’s what people care about the most.

But what exactly do we get on local newscasts? We get:

  • two-minute package reports about issues that were reported in the morning newspapers
  • briefs about road accidents they could scramble a cameraman to get B-roll for
  • softball interviews with newsmakers, activists and politicians
  • whatever sounds good on a press release and can provide good visuals
  • reports on criminal court proceedings (reporter stands in front of courthouse cut with B-roll of lawyers and family members walking down hallways)
  • 20-second anchor voice-overs with B-roll from community events they didn’t want to send a reporter to
  • recaps of sports games with footage taken from other networks
  • entertainment listings
  • a weather presenter (usually female) showing us the latest fashions and waving her hands over forecast maps
  • silly banter between anchors to fill time
  • packaged reports taken from the national network, other regional stations or international sources like CNN.

This isn’t to bash CFCF, which produces the best of Montreal’s three anglo newscasts (and has the ratings to show for it). But they want us to pay for this in addition to seeing all the advertising?

Your friendly neighbourhood corporate conglomerate

CFCF12 logo

Former CFCF12 logo

This slick marketing campaign really rubs me the wrong way. It’s a giant corporate behemoth owned by an even more giant corporate behemoth, and it hasn’t exactly shown a commitment to local television in the past. What was once a member-owned collective of television stations across Canada has since been bought up by a corporate profit-seeking enterprise that has imposed its power on local stations. CFCF Television in Montreal was forced to dump its iconic logo and rename its signature newscast solely to please the whims of head office that wanted all the stations in the network to look identical.

Now, suddenly, it’s in CTV’s interest to get people to feel nostalgic about their local television station. So it created this campaign and setup this website, which has cookie-cutter versions for each CTV and A-Channel station (it even has a French version which is actually mostly English). They’ve produced 30-second ads where community leaders read from nearly identical scripts that give vague references to how important local TV is in promoting local events. They’re running ads on local television stations and even arranging one-sided fluff interviews with their news employees.

CFCF opens its doors

CTV Open House contact info

They’re also organizing open houses next weekend at all their stations. CFCF, which has offices at Papineau and René-Lévesque, will be open as of 9am on May 23. People who want to visit are asked to call or email to “reserve your tour.”

Whether or not you agree with or even care about this issue, this is a rare opportunity to see what it’s like inside a local television station and meet some of the people you see on air. I’d recommend against passing this chance up.

How to get me on board

Despite my reservations about their funding idea, despite how much they’ve destroyed local television so far through budget cuts and local brand suppression, despite how obviously self-serving it all is, despite the fact that they still made money last year (though not the hundreds of millions of dollars that they’re used to) and despite the fact that they want us to pay for the fact that they made unwise investments and couldn’t see that their business model was doomed, I’m willing to hear CTV’s case and even open to the idea of supporting their cause, on one condition:

I want to see their numbers. All of them.

While the CRTC releases so-called “aggregate” financial information about conventional broadcasters so we know how much money they make as a whole and how much they spend in total on certain types of programming. From that we learn that they’re spending more on licensing U.S. programming than creating Canadian programming (including news). The argument is that the advertising profits from simulcasting U.S. programming subsidize the Canadian programming and newscasts. But we have only their word that this is true.

The CRTC has moved to increase such transparency in reporting of financial information, but that has met resistance from broadcasters who argue it may expose trade secrets.

If CTV wants my support, they have to get over that paranoia and let the public see those numbers. How much are senior executives getting paid? How much does their Canadian programming cost? How much are they spending on public relations and marketing? How much of the cost of importing U.S. programming is shared with the cable channels that also broadcast it?

These are questions I’d like answers to before I start pressuring my MP.

UPDATE (June 1): CTV says “100,000 expressions of support“, with 30,000 visiting open houses.

| Montreal, TV

CFCF cancels morning newscast, lays off three

Morning news anchor Herb Luft will return to regular reporting

Morning news anchor Herb Luft will return to regular reporting

The news hit insiders this morning, and the press release was issued just after the end of business: CFCF (aka CTV Montreal) is cancelling its 6am morning newscast, effective immediately, and replacing it with another half hour of its national morning program Canada AM. (Previously, CFCF would cut into Canada AM after the first half hour.) They’ve already updated their weekly schedule to reflect the change.

The decision, which is being made to cut costs, will mean the cutting of four positions (one of which is already vacant). Herb Luft, who has been anchoring the morning newscast since it started in March 2000, will return to general assignment reporting.

CFCF’s license requires a minimum of 15.5 hours a week of local programming. Since the cancellation of Entertainment Spotlight and SportsNight 360 in January, this has been entirely made up of local newscasts (and the late sportscast at 11:45). The cancellation of the half-hour weekday newscast drops CFCF’s local programming hours from 18.5 to about 16 hours a week with a one-hour weekday noon newscast, one-hour daily evening newscast and 35-minute daily late newscast.

It also means that there is now no morning local news from any of Montreal’s anglophone television stations. Global Quebec cancelled This Morning Live last year and replaced it with a repeat of the previous night’s News Final. CBC Montreal airs a national morning news program.

First News, as it was officially called, was also the last local morning newscast in the CTV network. All the other stations ran all three hours of Canada AM from 6 to 9am.

UPDATE: The Gazette has a brief about it (that’s open to comments), which pretty much repeats everything already in this post. Evening anchor Todd van der Heyden mentioned the cancellation in the middle of the evening newscast (the website has a brief about it as well), pointing out that even with this reduction CFCF has more local news than its competitors.

UPDATE (March 11): How’s this for irony? CTV has laid off 24 people from Canada AM.

| TV

Slash and burn at A Channel

A channel

It turns out CTV isn’t quite done with the cutbacks at its secondary broadcast network. After announcing it wouldn’t renew licenses for two southern Ontario stations, the axe has come down on 118 jobs at other stations across the network, including 34 in Ottawa/Pembroke, 18 in Victoria, 24 in Barrie, Ont., and more (42 by my math) in London, representing about 28% of the workforce.

As a result, various local programming is being cancelled. Barrie and London are cutting their morning programs, and like Global Quebec will be re-running their nightly newscasts in the morning.

In Victoria, the morning show will be replaced by “cameras … in the C-FAX 1070 radio station starting tomorrow to broadcast its morning show from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.”

In Ottawa, it’s the reverse. The evening and weekend newscasts will be cancelled.

They can do this and still keep their broadcasting licenses because of a loophole in the CRTC’s local programming rules. It says stations have to air a certain minimum amount of locally-produced programming every week, but it doesn’t say that it has to produce that much, so stations can get away with producing an hour and a half of news and replaying it at 6am, and that counts as three hours of programming.

A Channel has never really made money. And since its acquisition by CTV it’s basically been a dumping ground for second-rate U.S. shows that won’t fit on the main network’s schedule. (The irony is that CTV never wanted the network. They were more interested in acquiring CHUM’s specialty channels and would offload A Channel onto Rogers. But the CRTC intervened and said they had to give away Citytv instead. Had this not happened, we might be looking at massive layoffs at Citytv right now.)

The union has issued a news release blaming CTV for turning its back on small communities, while also drinking its Kool-Aid that the whole problem is because cable companies are making money and not handing it over to CTV (as opposed to, say, CTV spending millions to acquire U.S. programming that could be spent on original programming).

UPDATE (March 12): the Ottawa Citizen looks inside the cuts at A Channel in Ottawa.

| Radio

CHUM Radio cuts jobs; Two laid off at Team 990

Bonnie Brownlee at CTV isn’t having the best week. Today she issued yet another press release with bad news, saying that CHUM Radio (which CTV owns) is eliminating 40 jobs at stations across the country, including CKGM Team 990 in Montreal. It breaks down as 17 terminations (which hurt current employees) and 23 unfilled vacancies (which hurt future radio people and those already laid off).

At CKGM, CHUM Radio tells Fagstein there will be two layoffs and one unfilled vacancy.

This comes a day after CTV announced it was shutting down two A-channel TV stations in southern Ontario, and a week after saying it would put up a Brandon TV station for “sale” (giving it away to anyone who wants to pay for its upkeep).

| Business, TV

CTV to shut down two stations

UPDATE (May 1): SOLD!

And so it begins. CTV announced today it is not applying for license renewals for two small-market ‘A’ network stations: CKNX-TV in Wingham, Ont., and CHWI-TV in Wheatley, Ont. (which serves Windsor).

This comes a week after CTV said it would not renew the license of CKX-TV in Brandon, which is actually a CBC affiliate and carriest mostly CBC programming in primetime.

A whackload of broadcast stations from CTV and Global have licenses up for renewal this year. Not only is the media meltdown hurting their bottom lines (or, more accurately, their creditors) and the world economic crisis making it worse, but with a forced switchover to digital broadcasting in 2011, this is the ideal time to decide to throw in the towel for small-market stations rather than start investing in new transmitters.

In its press release, CTV implicitly blames the CRTC’s decision to turn down their money-grab for their decision to shut down the station. It also sounds like the network hopes this will prompt the CRTC to change its mind.

CTV-owned stations in southern Ontario: CTV (blue), A (green) and the two stations being shut down (red)

CTV-owned stations in southern Ontario: CTV (blue), A (green) and the two stations being shut down (red)

Local news is expected to be taken up by London’s A station and Kitchener’s CTV station. It’s unclear if the transmitters themselves would be shut down or converted into rebroadcasters.

It remains to be seen if similar fates will hit Canwest’s E! secondary network, which still doesn’t have a buyer.

More coverage from CP, CBC, Canwest, Windsor Star, London Free Press, Reuters and the Globe and Mail.

| Media, Sports, Web design

CTV Olympics site goes live

ctvolympics.ca

ctvolympics.ca

More than a year before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics begin, CTV has launched CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca, where it will have coverage of the games in English and French. (This pretty much seals that RDS, not TQS, will be the primary French-language network.)

This is the first time in over a decade that CTV will be the Canadian Olympic broadcaster, and so much has changed since the early 90s (this thing called the Internet, for example).

For its first Olympic website, it does look pretty impressive. That said, I couldn’t get the video player to work (it’s Microsoft Silverlight-based, though I have that installed), and this is what happened when I tried to play with the past medal count widget:

How dare you try to compare more than four countries!

How dare you try to compare more than four countries? Behold our grammatically-incorrect error message!

Fortunately they have a year to sort that kind of stuff out.