Please Silence My Local TV
Now that the TV stations are in a full court handout press, isn’t it time to allow the media to reorganize to the new reality?
As I flip channels between Global, CTV and CBC when watching local news, it’s a repeat on all three. Different anchor, same stories. And this is in big-city Vancouver. I can only imagine what it’s like in places like Windsor or Moose Jaw.
Take away two and no one would notice.
The only unfairness is that the private stations are forced to compete with a welfare channel. Kill CBC local now. We’d see the other two survive and we’d save money.
The alternative means we pay more for this duplication.
The fact is that if local advertisers won’t support local news, there really isn’t a reason to continue it. The ones that draw the most viewers will attract advertisers.
Other bailout proposals include the creation of a local programming fund for broadcasters, and ordering cable and satellite TV companies to compensate local TV stations if they transmit their signal into another Canadian time zone via time shifting.
Great, I get to catch Cranbrook’s news.
Then we have this:
Under pressure from its own backbenchers, the federal government is reportedly considering a massive $150 million television advertising campaign to bail out the private TV networks.
The networks – Global, CTV and TVA in Quebec – are struggling with the combined impact of a cyclical downturn and a structural change in the television business that has seen more advertising flow to specialty channels. Notwithstanding the fact that most of those specialty channels are owned by the networks, they have been lobbying the government for a bailout. Backbenchers have been targeted with suggestions that if help is not forthcoming, stations in their ridings will have to be closed.
“I’m hopeful that we’re starting to establish a consensus that something has to happen, whether it’s funding, whether it’s government ad buys, whether it’s fee-for-carriage,” said backbench Conservative MP Patrick Brown in an interview with the Star.
What the networks really want is a fee-for-carriage – a fee for the cable transmission of their broadcasts, which would ultimately be borne by viewers. But this proposal has already been shot down by the CRTC. And the Conservatives are leery of overruling the CRTC lest they be blamed for hiking everyone’s cable bill. Hence, the proposal to help the networks through the back door by airing more government ads.
This is a bad idea. Stripped to its essentials, public money would flow to private networks on the heels of a government rebuff of an appeal from the public network, the CBC, for more funding.
The government should bury this idea before it gains momentum.
Interesting that the bailout is framed around local news.
I don’t believe it for a minute and see it as an extortion – the belief is that local news is sacred to Canadian culture.
If this bailout happens, I am going to drop cable, and switch to HULU… and free HDTV (all you need is an antenna). All it takes is a few hours, and I should be able to replace it all for free.
I’ll get to save $100/month. All I need to do is figure out how to get Fox News. (Maybe I could become a criminal and get a US satellite service?)
Are you listening Stephen Harper… and Shaw?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:20 am
I don’t think the viewers should have to pay for local stations which are available for free via the big rabbit ears.