Corus to face tough local news fight, say critics

Critics are questioning Corus Entertainment’s move to operate a local specialty television service aimed at 64 markets in Western Canada, saying the battle for local audiences and advertising would be a tough one. The service, tentatively known as Local1, plans to provide “hyper-local” news and information to communities in Canada’s western provinces. According to its CRTC application, Corus’ service will rely on third parties for the majority of its news content. “For news information … we will utilize third-party subscription services such as Canadian Press which has local and regional feeds. We will also draw from feeds originating from Corus-owned radio stations across … municipalities and provincial government bodies,” reads the application, filed last month. “There is a need for personal, detailed, constantly available local information and weather forecasts in each community.” Corus says the service will be “tailored to respond to the needs and interests of each individual community that it serves, large or small, urban or rural.” It’s not clear whether Corus intends to establish any new local news operations and what the content will look like. Corus is owned by Shaw Communications Inc., and Shaw TV currently operates 24 community channels in Canada, most of them in Western Canada. “We have developed a business plan on the expectation that we will be able to negotiate an initial launch on ten larger Shaw systems in Western Canada within 6 months of approval,” the application says. The application goes on to identify the Western Canadian cities Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. “They seem to be presenting it as a hyper-local service, but there’s actually little concrete information about what new original content they would offer,” Catherine Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS), told The Wire Report. “I just wonder if that isn’t something that could be offered on the Internet.” The service, if approved, would compete in local news markets with CTV, CBC and other broadcasters. “You’ve got to remember that Corus is owned by Shaw, and Shaw has BDUs here, with cable across the island,” Jim Blundell, station manager at the CTV-owned A Channel Victoria, said in an interview. “I suspect they’ll try to provide local news out of these BDUs if the CRTC will allow them to sell advertising, which they don’t, presently.” But Blundell added that he does not think a Corus station would be profitable in the Victoria market. His station and the independent CHEK-TV are now competing for advertising there. “There are already two of us here, duking it out,” he said. “If they’re looking to put a conventional television station in with news and everything else, that just wouldn’t be viable.” Corus' proposed broadcasting licence says the channels could run 12 minutes of advertising per hour, including a maximum of six minutes of local advertising. Jeffrey Dvorkin, the Rogers visiting professor of journalism at Ryerson University, said the economic arguments for the service seem obvious. “It’s cheap to do, and you establish a presence in the market without having to invest particularly in an editorial force to give you original journalism,” he said. Prof. Christopher Waddell, the Carty Chair in business and financial journalism at Carleton University, said the service would need to count on revenue from cable subscribers to be profitable. “It sounds like minimalist content in an attempt to get some money from a subscriber base, but I don’t know why anyone would want to subscribe,” he said. Waddell said the battle for local advertising could go two ways. If the Corus stations offer unique local content in each market, it could attract advertisers who currently use weekly and community newspapers to promote themselves. But if the news content is similar across all of its channels, the service would attract larger advertisers. “If you’re Joe’s Barber Shop on Main Street why would you want to advertise in 63 communities that won’t be coming to Joe’s Barber Shop?” Waddell said. The CRTC will hold a hearing in April to consider Corus’ application along with several other broadcasting service applications. Corus representatives were not available for comment Tuesday. jmigneault@thewirereport.ca

Corus to face tough local news fight, say critics

Broadcast | March 2, 2010

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