CRTC news fund proposal would ‘gut’ community TV: Cogeco

Cogeco Communications Inc. told a CRTC hearing Wednesday that a plan the commission proposed to create a new fund for local TV news programming, to be funded by existing financial resources within the broadcasting system, would amount to “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Nathalie Dorval, Cogeco’s vice-president of regulatory affairs and copyright, said doing so “particularly when both Peter and Paul are increasingly losing customers and money to Uncle Sam, is neither an effective nor a fair public policy option.” The CRTC released a paper earlier this month that set out such a fund as a basis for discussion at its hearing on local and community television, which began Monday. The CRTC didn’t specify how existing money should be reallocated, though it did talk about a possible "rebalancing of resources and responsibilities between the various elements of the system," which it identified as public, private and community. On the first day of the hearing, BCE Inc. representatives suggested the CRTC reduce community TV funding from cable and IPTV service providers and redirect 0.8 per cent of all other contributions from cable or IPTV service providers to a proposed news fund and 0.2 per cent to the Small Market Local Programming Fund (SMLPF). Channel Zero Inc. said it would support such a proposal, while Friends of Canadian Broadcasting told the commission that there isn’t enough money in the system overall to fund local TV. Cogeco’s senior director of programming and community relations for Quebec, Daniel Picard said Wednesday “the math simply does not work” because the Canadian TV system is undergoing structural changes, such as the growth of on-demand and over-the-top (OTT) viewing. He said, according to a written version of his opening comments in English, that the proposed plan would “gut the whole community sector” and wouldn’t yield “any demonstrable capital and operating efficiencies or any sustainable solution to the economic and financial predicament of conventional local television stations.” The company also presented a plan in response to the CRTC’s proposal to encourage community channels to create local news in areas without over-the-air television channels. Cogeco said its plan would increase the amount of local news in small markets within its operating footprint, but cautioned it wouldn’t be compatible with any initiative to reallocate resources within the TV system. A coalition of small market independent television stations (SMITS) also appeared at the hearing Wednesday. Don Caron of Thunder Bay Electronics said in the group’s opening statement that the CRTC should support both local and community television. He said the CRTC should support community TV in areas without a local TV station signal and give priority to local TV stations in areas where they do exist, “particularly in small and medium markets where no local TV stations would exist without support.” Caron argued that “where local TV exists, it is a ubiquitous, more effective and more efficient vehicle for citizen engagement than community TV.” The group asked the CRTC to establish a new private local TV fund from current contributions broadcast distributors make to the system, and to do in addition to the SMLPF. “Our recommendation is that you preserve and increase, through a direct contribution from cable, the funding of small market independent stations and introduce whatever funding you feel appropriate for a broader array of services that provide local news and reflection,” Glenda Spenrath, vice-president of operations and regulatory affairs at Newcap Inc., said. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca

CRTC news fund proposal would ‘gut’ community TV: Cogeco

Broadcast | January 27, 2016

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CRTC news fund proposal would ‘gut’ community TV: Cogeco

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