Local stations’ ‘Save Local TV’ campaign not a code violation: CBSC

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) said in a decision Wednesday that CTV’s “Save Local TV” campaign on fee-for-carriage last year did not violate any broadcast codes. The CBSC examined an advocacy campaign conducted by CTV-owned stations in May 2009 that had run related promotional spots and news reports. Cable and satellite distributors had run a corresponding campaign called “Stop the TV Tax,” which opposed paying fees to broadcasters for the carriage of their over-the-air analogue signals. The distributors had complained to the CRTC that CTV-owned stations used their programming to air biased and unbalanced content to promote the campaign. That complaint, considered a “content issue,” was forwarded to the CBSC. The CBSC said it also received a complaint from an individual viewer in the Atlantic region who shared the distributors’ view of the CTV campaign. The two complaints identified broadcasts on CJCH-TV (CTV Atlantic Halifax), CKCW-TV (CTV Atlantic Moncton), ASN (‘A’ Atlantic), CJOH-TV (CTV Ottawa), CKCO-TV (CTV Southwestern Ontario), CFTO-TV (CTV Toronto) and CKVR-TV (‘A’ Barrie). The complaints were studied under the codes of ethics of the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. The CBSC found that many of the segments under complaint were promotional spots or commercials that attempted to “sell” the broadcasters’ position in support of local television. “That these spots used station personalities, including news anchors and reporters as their ‘pitchmen,’ did not violate any broadcast standards,” the CBSC said in a release. “Those broadcasts that are promos or commercials are by definition selling something, whether a good, a service, or an idea. It cannot be expected that such pitches will be objective, unbiased, detached, or laid back.” The CBSC added that many of the news reports and promos focused on the role of local television in communities and did not refer to fee-for-carriage. “The question is whether that self-serving, patting-themselves-on-the-back broadcast content was in any codified-standards sense problematic. The Panels conclude that it is not,” the CBSC said.

Local stations’ ‘Save Local TV’ campaign not a code violation: CBSC

Brief | June 16, 2010

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Local stations’ ‘Save Local TV’ campaign not a code violation: CBSC

Brief | June 16, 2010

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