TVO offering 105 analog transmitters to local communities

One hundred and five low-powered TVO analog TV transmitters scheduled for decommission this week are being offered to local communities to use at no cost, the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (OECA), the provincial agency that operates TVO, said. TVO said in April it will cease over-the-air analog broadcasting at 14 medium or high-powered transmitter sites July 31. Another 105 low-powered transmitters will be phased out. TFO, the organization's French-language station, will shut down four transmitters, for a total of 123. The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS), an advocacy group for campus and community-run television stations, has campaigned for public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada to offer its decommissioned analog transmitters to communities. “TVO has reached out to every community that still has an LPRT to inform the community of our plans and to make arrangements for TVO technicians to come and remove our equipment,” Jeff Rohrer, director of communications at TVO, said in an emailed statement to The Wire Report Tuesday. Rohrer said TVO would decommission the 105 low-power transmitters at 50 sites per year at an expected completion target of fall 2013. “We have extended the option to each community to transfer ownership of the local transmitter tower and satellite dish,” Rohrer said. “We think it’s fantastic,” Cathy Edwards, a spokeswoman for CACTUS, said in a phone interview. “We had hoped that the CBC would pursue a similar course of action.” She said TVO wrote a letter to affected communities for them to make a decision about whether to use the equipment. TVO's outreach on the issue has been better than CBC's, she said. “It was up to us to sort of encourage communities to do it, and there was no direct communications from the CBC. The CBC was slow in getting back to people,” she said. “It was very complicated and always thrown onto the community to take the initiative.” Rohrer said many communities formerly with low-power TVO transmitters are using the towers to receive local wireless services. He said in a follow-up phone interview that communities planning to use the equipment, such as towers, antennas, and satellite dishes, would not be charged. “We’d be handing over the equipment,” he said. He added that the 105 tranmitters being decommissioned were put up in the 1980s as part of an initiative called Television Extension in Northern Ontario (TENO). “There was actual provincial funding at the time for these sites,” Rohrer said.“The community owns the land that the towers are on, so it was a community decision, in coordination with TVO, to set up the sites in the beginning.” Rohrer said that, as a result of the increased choice provided by the emergence of direct-to-home satellite services, more than half of the originally installed low-power transmitters have been removed or transferred to communities. CBC has told The Wire Report it cannot hand over its analog broadcasting equipment to local community stations without passing on tower or space rental fees it pays in most locations. Those fees are at least $4,800 annually, The Wire Report reported last week. Martin Marcotte, director of CBC transmission, told The Wire Report last week that offering the transmitters to community and volunteer-run broadcasters is “something that CACTUS came up with … It’s not a position that CBC tabled or came up with.” Steven Guiton, vice-president and chief regulatory officer at CBC, similarly told The Wire Report in May that CBC is decommissioning transmitters, not towers. “We’re not in the tower business,” he said. Rohrer said he is not in a position to comment on CBC's plans. He said TVO does not own the towers holding its 14 medium to high-powered transmitters. “Obviously, because we don’t own the tower, we’re not in a position to transfer ownership to the community,” he said. Leasing TVO’s transmitters and receivers mounted on its 14 higher-powered sites would not benefit communities because the technology is outdated, he said. “So, in my mind, that probably isn’t an option.” Rohrer told The Wire Report Monday that maintenance for TVO’s analog transmitters is costly as necessary parts are no longer manufactured. The transmitter shutdown will save TVO about $1.5 million annually, he said. dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

TVO offering 105 analog transmitters to local communities

Broadcast | July 31, 2012

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TVO offering 105 analog transmitters to local communities

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