Last week it was Michael Harris and 15 bodies cashiered at Bell Media's radio cluster.
Yesterday it was the announcement that a pile of folks, 35, from their number one TV station, the former CJOH, now CTV Ottawa, will be blown out and blown out soon.
Here is the problem as I see it. When you watch American TV you have a sense of place. If you are in Bismarck, North Dakota and are watching any of the network stations serving the ND capital you know you are watching a ND TV. Ditto the bigger markets too. Not so much here. Everything has to be streamlined, integrated, cost efficient, bland. It is getting bad in Ottawa, Montreal etc; it is absolutely terrible in smaller markets, markets that are many times the size of Bismarck such as Kitchener [the home of one local TV station]; London [the home of one local TV station]; Niagara [the home of no local TV]; Hamilton [the home of one local TV station] and; Pembroke [the home of no local TV]. I could go on for a thousand words on this.
Canadians like to deride Americans and their pride but their pride comes from being proud of who they are and where they are from and that pride is manifested in the local stories, remember all politics is local, local adverts and local pride.
When you are in Bismarck, North Dakota or Seattle, Washington or New Orleans, Louisiana and you are watching the TV news you are seeing stories about that town, those people. When you are in Brandon, Manitoba or Windsor, Ontario or Oshawa, Ontario not so much.
That is what has been lost yet again. A sense of place.
They, Bell Media, may be saving money in the short run but when I was driving home tonight their overnight radio show on their news talker, CFRA, was syndicated American programming talking about America. The overnight programming on their sports station, The Team, was Rob Dibble and FOX Sports talking about college basketball, American college ball. For twenty dollars an hour Bell Media could do local programming but that would cost them twenty dollars more an hour than these brokered shows cost them.
This is both shortsighted and some serious bullsh*t.
WFDS
Our media companies are operating and evolving the same way our political infrastructure is changing: consolidation of power to the top with local voices being silenced.
ReplyDeleteThe future of Canada rests on all localities being able to voice themselves in unique ways.
Presently, we have this wonderful opportunity with technology to wrest this from the major conglomerates that spoon-feed us crap every day. We have the ability to create local social platforms with open-source tools like Buddy Press, custom news feeds and other info sources that speak to our immediate local needs.
However, as Cons continue to label anyone that doesn't do what the establishment tells them to do as terrorists, we're all in deep doo doo.
In other words, it's going to get ugly.
The reality is that similar stations can be operated out of one place. For example, a master control operator in Toronto can operate six television stations at one time with either the same or different programs operating. With automation, the same program can run on several stations while different local commercials can be inserted for each market. This gives the false appearance that each station is local even though the actual local content may be about one and a half hours of news per day. Remember a few years ago when CTV ran its "Support local television" campaign in order to get carriage fees from cable/satellite television distribution companies.
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