Editorial

The recent over-the-air television review has served to highlight a lot of the pressing issues that broadcasters, producers, regulators and other parties must deal with to ensure a future for Canadian broadcasting. One of the most important, of course, is the financial viability of private television. After all, cultural and social policies can be tweaked, but a money-losing firm soon finds itself starved for capital and unable to compete. Not surprising, then, that various aspects of the broadcasting business model were debated and deliberated upon during the public consultation process. But while there was some disagreement between OTA and specialty broadcasters as to whether the 12-minute-per-hour limit on conventional spot advertising should stand – conventional broadcasters want it abolished, specialty programmers want it to stand, and some in both camps argue that ads promoting foreign programming should be exempt from that cap – all of them agree that product placement should be left out of the regulation equation altogether. While the jury is still out on product placement’s effectiveness vis-à-vis traditional advertising (the results of a Decima survey earlier this year notwithstanding – see story, p. 3), it’s seen as a near-panacea by all involved in the television value chain: producers look to it to help recoup production costs; broadcasters pray that it’ll prove enticing for ad agencies besieged by data showing a drop in effectiveness for traditional 30-second spots; and advertisers hope it’ll engage and reach an increasingly jaded and cynical audience with one collective finger perpetually on the fast-forward button of their digital video recorders. But product placement may be a stop-gap cure for what ails private television. It certainly will exhaust itself eventually: what will broadcasters do then? They’d better start thinking up a solution now. James LewisEditor

Editorial

News | October 27, 2006

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us