Persichilli: Broadcasters change channel in middle of show
By Angelo Persichilli - Political Columnist Toronto Star
Published On Sun Nov 29 2009 A few years ago, a licence to broadcast was considered a licence to print money. The same TV broadcasters are now begging the CRTC to allow them to get more money from us without giving us anything in return.
In the past, they lobbied the CRTC against granting any new licenses on the primary tier. New broadcasters were relegated to the back of the cable lineup as Specialty 1 or 2 channels (the former with mandatory carriage, the latter being only discretionary, but both of them available only after paying a fee).
To protect the conventional broadcasters, the new channels had reduced market penetration. They were available only on cable, with no guarantee of carriage for some and less commercial airtime because all viewers had to pay a fee. The operators of these channels had to work hard to get viewers by inventing and selling new programs.
The only sweetener was a fee from the subscriptions that we, the viewers, were forced to pay to protect the conventional broadcasters' quasi-monopoly on commercials. Those were the rules that the broadcasters lobbied the CRTC to approve. But now they want those rules changed.
Let's see why. The world of broadcasting was quickly changing and almost everybody - the new pioneer broadcasters, cable companies and, of course, viewers - adjusted to this new reality. The only group that didn't see the changes coming was the "elite" of Canadian broadcasting, mainly CTV and Global. They believed they were invincible, that viewers would keep watching their programs no matter what, and they ignored that the world and technology were fast changing. They believed that those changes only affected other media, like newspapers and radio.
In fact, those industries started to address the new reality long ago. They are still struggling with it and, in some instances, also having some success, without crying for help from anybody. Also involved in this deep transformation were the distributors of the signals, namely cable and satellite companies. They knew that digital was replacing analog and that the over-the-air signal was becoming obsolete. They also knew that viewers' habits were changing in terms of content and quality of delivery, and that viewers were moving in droves toward new specialty channels. The conventional broadcasters still didn't get it.
The only thing they did was to go on a spending spree buying most of the same specialty channels they had tried to stop years before and that now are the most, if not the only, profitable part of their operations. They didn't invest in the Canadian entertainment industry and also aim at the U.S. market (we speak the same language, after all). Instead, they increasingly imported American shows. And then the Internet arrived and hit the sleepwalking elite like a tsunami. They are now scared and running back to Mama CRTC, crying because they have fewer viewers and are making less money than their specialty channels.
They're asking again for protection, just like they did 30 years ago, and this time they are not even promising to give anything in return. They also want more flexibility to broadcast American programs without being tied to simulcasting - and, by the way, they say, forget the digitalization of our system and let's stick with the old technology until 2013. Welcome to the past and, in the process, give us more money in the future. But are the broadcasters in financial trouble because their programs are distributed free on cable and satellites?
The fact that their programs have free carriage on cable and satellite increases their market penetration. Isn't the model they promoted for 30 years forcing viewers to pay for the new specialty channels? Furthermore, if we don't watch the networks now that they are free, why would we watch them when we have to pay a fee? They argue that broadcasting has changed and they want to be part of the changes. I don't believe that. In their request, there is no new broadcasting plan to better exploit new technology by promoting Canadian creativity, new programming ideas or some benefit for the consumers. They want money from the new technology to defend an old model that is not working any more. Their request has everything to do with the bottom line of their shareholders at the expense of the consumers.
Angelo Persichilli is political editor of Corriere Canadese.
His column appears Sunday
He doesn't point out that once you get outside of Toronto you have rabid cannibalization of the dial by the CHCH's and Global's and TVO's that have repeaters in cities like Thunder Bay and Ottawa and Kitchener and merely suck money out of those towns without contributing squat.
And the fact that, unlike similar sized markets in the United States of, local Canuckistanian TV pays next to nothing coz they don't have to. An example would be Max Keeping in Ottawa. Mr. Keeping has been the top dog on the six o'clock news for almost four decades; if he were in a similar sized market in the States, with similar numbers [he is sooooooo dominant, like 7 to 1] he would be making a mill a year. I don't do his taxes but he doesn't make anywhere that a year. Or in three years.
WFDS
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