Advertising on Community TV

This posting is on behalf of Maria Paez Victor, who sent these comments via e-mail:

I believe strongly that the community voices need to be heard above the 99% commercially dominated media aimed solely at profit making. Culture is the heart and sole of any society, of any state - the Europeans know this - see how the governments of England, France, Germany, Italy (to name a few) all set aside a significant portion of government budgets to maintain their art collections, museums, historic buildings, ballet, orchestras and opera companies - and community and public media. Why does Canada lag behind?

I believe that if community TV and Radio are to open its doors to commerce then it must be very regulated because they have the means to swamp the broadcast, and then, what difference will a community media be from the commercial?

We would not allow political messages to be broadcast every 10 or 5 minutes on Radio and TV, yet why do we allow a commercial message (which is an consumer ideology and propaganda itself). Why do we allow ourselves to be bombarded with this consumerism mania? On the whole, I would say that unless the commercial message is one with a public interest attached to it ( for example: "There is a Red Cross blood clinic operating today at the (Local) Loblaws"), it should not be allowed.

Thank you for your kind attention and again, for asking for feedback,

Sincerely,

Maria Páez Victor
72 Gothic Avenue
Toronto, Ontaro, M6P2V9

Examining this issue is quite complex. Firstly, we should consider what Canadians define as a community channel. Traditionally, we think of the local cable channel, which at one time was necessary for cable to provide in order to have an operating license. That service provided public access programs driven by community volunteers with support from cable staff.

Today it is very different. Cable does not have to provide community TV; therefore, if offered, it is motivated by cable’s principle agenda - corporate branding and making money. Let’s face it; if they operate a community channel, cable gets to keep 2-3% of their revenues that would otherwise go to the Canadian Television Fund. For many cable operators that is a considerable chunk of change.

As the cable operators grow, small stations, once found in communities within metro areas such as Vancouver or Toronto, have disappeared. It does not stop there. Smaller neighboring cities have combined community channels, and in New Brunswick, the entire province is virtually covered by one so-called community programming service. However, at the same time, independent, non-profit, community low-power broadcasters (LPTV) are currently limited to a 12 km broadcast radius. This is hardly fair if both cable and LPTV have a "Community TV" status.

Cable TV volunteers now seem to be literally “used” to create professional corporate-driven programming that is heavily funded with cheap man-power. Many of these programs also have little to do with a specific local community. For example: a financial/investment show is not community specific, a fishing show shot in Australia but edited locally in Canada is not local reflection, or, although important, a parenting program is generic to any Canadian community.

My point is that these generic programs are easily shared among cable-community channels and more importantly, easily sponsored. I believe these programs are worthy but are more suited for local commercial TV. In the end I question their relevance for local reflection; how many of them actually reflect the community that cable serves?

To add more insult, these programs are originally produced for cable-community TV with volunteers, but some end up on commercial specialty cable channels. That sounds a bit like exploitation!

Cable-community TV has evolved into a general interest local channel where “local” could be a single municipality or region covering an entire province. That being said, cable operated local channels should be licensed like any other channel, with terms and conditions as to what their local programming should actually reflect by defining their market community and allocation of local ad revenues. The majority of community TV commercials should be for the local community market so as not to compete with regional or national advertising markets.

Cathy touched on this…the CAB is protecting local commercial TV stations by opposing ads on “cable-community” because those stations would normally want as much of the local advertising pie as possible. Although this may be true in large Canadian cities, however, in most Canadian communities radio is king because most commercial TV stations do not compete for local ad dollars because their audience is more regional. Therefore, it should not be a big problem in these cases for cable OR LPTV to go strongly after those local ad dollars where commercial network stations do not exist. Limiting community TV to focus on local advertising should pacify the CAB and force big cable to think more locally. This CRTC policy already exists protecting local stations from regional TV broadcasters.

Where a distant cable operated “community” channel is distributed into markets which are home to a LPTV license, the cable channel should take a second seat and not actively seek out advertising opportunities within the LPTV’s market.

The mandate of the cable-community channel has already changed and should be re-defined as a "local" specialty channel. The community LPTV broadcaster should be nurtured as the perfect medium for community TV because it is free for everyone to use without subscription. As a local broadcaster LPTV should continue to be distributed by cable. Where LPTV does not exist, cable public access channels could be reborn but today it seems limiting public access as a cable only service would be contradictory.

Patrick Watt
CHCT-TV/UHF26
St. Andrews Independent Community TV

Bud McNeely
I believe that any sponsors that help make productions better technically, feed hungry volunteers, supply travel and other necessary funds/resources for the production of community television programs should be encouraged with appropriate plugs and or "commercial messages" that help cover costs for hardware and software that might be needed to make productions better and more viewable.
Technical expertise and promotion of good production values are important in order to attract viewers to community television shows and help keep the balls rolling for community television shows.