Community TV sector says it’s on life support, and latest CRTC policy isn’t going to save it

They may be a dying breed, but those who are dedicated to keeping independent over-the-air community television signals alive are hoping the sector will make a comeback thanks to new revenue models, including digital broadcasting and rebroadcasting. Even so, there remains a consensus that the best thing that could happen to the dwindling sector is an unlikely influx of government-regulated funding. There are two kinds of community television stations in Canada: the independents and those owned by larger broadcasters such as Shaw Communications Inc. or Rogers Communications Inc. There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when Canada boasted around 300 community stations, but today, there are only seven independent, not-for-profit, over-the-air community stations operating in English Canada. The stations, located in Leemington, Ont., Valemount and Dawson Creek, B.C., Neepawa, Man., Telile, N.S., St. Andrews, N.B., and Hay River, N.W.T., all share the same goal of making television production accessible to their communities. Most of their programming is produced by community members, either in the station’s facilities or by delivering a tape of material. The shows can be virtually anything and everything, ranging from current events to a city council meeting to footage from someone’s recent trip to Europe. “We don’t cut anything off. If it’s 53 minutes, well it’s 53 minutes,” Ivan Traill, general manager of NACTV in Neepawa, says. “The places that have lots and lots of money, they only do the really high-profile things. They would never go to a town hall meeting. They would never do a presentation on gardening and how to look after your plants.” The key to producing good community television, says Patrick Watt, production manager at CHCT-TV26 in St. Andrews, isn’t producing Hollywood-quality shows. It’s focusing on the community. “When you’re working with a small town, they don’t want a flashy set. They want to see their neighbours,” Watt said in an interview. “We’re finding people here have a hard time connecting to television … Big channels have gotten too big and have lost the connection with the community.” Ratings for the stations are generally low, but this doesn’t stop them from staying true to their mandate. Andru McCracken, station manager at VCTV in Valemount, recounted a story told by his predecessor about one holiday evening when, all in good fun, some active community members switched one of the signals on their local tower. An over-the-air American channel broadcasting into the community suddenly started showing footage from a pre-taped, local school Christmas concert, which they connected to the tower from a VCR. Those might be considered golden days. Today, some community stations rely solely on volunteers while others can afford one or two paid staff members—usually the station manager and the video editor or technical officer. Revenues also vary. Some stations receive funding from municipalities, others rely on bingo, DVD sales and fundraising events like bake sales. According to CRTC broadcasting policy, community television stations can show up to 12 minutes of advertising per hour, the same as a commercial station. But surviving under an advertising model can be difficult for community stations that traditionally broadcast within small geographic areas. This has become an issue for the St. Andrews station, which is now corresponding with the CRTC about carriage on Rogers’ local cable network. On the Rogers system, CHCT-TV26 is broadcast on channel 9 and Rogers’ competing local community station is broadcast on channel 10. But CHCT-TV26 is only carried within the town of St. Andrews, so that the town’s two neighbouring communities see the New Brunswick legislature when they turn to channel 9. “The three towns are pretty much a single social-economic community,” Watt said. “Potentially, I think we are … We don’t have the same reach .” Watt says he’s approached Rogers to get the station carried in the two neighbouring communities, but that his request was denied. “It undermines the community television system. People can have access to stations from B.C. … but they can’t have access to the station 15 kilometres away. It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he says. Watt has since taken up the issue with the CRTC, but the commission’s policy for community television doesn’t address his set of circumstances, he says. Rogers spokeswoman Carly Suppa wrote via email that Rogers is following CRTC regulations. “We broadcast CHCT TV where licensed to be carried and we follow the regulations set by the CRTC,” she said. Peter Foster, a spokesman for the CRTC, said in an interview that he could not comment on the St. Andrews situation, but says that in general terms, carriage depends on geographic coverage areas and demand. On Friday, the CRTC closed a call for comments on whether it would be appropriate to establish criteria so that certain television distributors could form zone-based community channels. Under this model, two or more services could team up together to meet the CRTC’s requirements to provide local, community access content. The services would be required to broadcast in a zone that is part of an officially recognized community, such as a municipality or county. Rogers wrote in its submission that although it generally supports the principle of zone-based channels, the amendments as proposed would lead to the closing of its community stations in New Brunswick and Newfoundland. Rogers says players should not be required to team up to offer a zone-based channel, and that the zones should not be defined by officially recognized communities. The Canadian Association for Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) also takes issue with the CRTC’s zoning proposal. CACTUS says zoning leads to studio closures because each individual service would face lower requirements. The community TV group adds that the rules would allow large distributors to prevent competitors from entering a region through competitive forces. But zoning isn’t the only issue on CACTUS’ radar. The group has also asked the commission to require Shaw to carry the seven independent stations on its satellite services. As part of a CRTC regulatory decision on direct-to-home satellite services, the commission directed Shaw on May 4 to carry all television stations that meet the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) requirements. The CRTC created the LPIF in 2008 to ensure small markets have access to local programming, but independent community television stations do not meet the LPIF’s requirements because they do not offer professional news shows. Under the LPIF model, cable and satellite companies must pay 1.5 per cent of their broadcasting revenues into the fund. In 2009-2010, this amounted to about $102 million. According to CACTUS’ calculations, about $120 million, a little more than the LPIF annual total, would be required to establish non-branded community channels within reach for 90 per cent of people in Canada. The commission rejected a previous request by the group to create such a fund. While independent stations receive no CRTC-mandated funding, large distributors are required to put about two per cent of their broadcasting revenues into their branded community stations. “That’s the problem. There’s no money in the system to stimulate genuine community production because it’s all tied up in these cable channels,” Catherine Edwards, a spokeswoman for CACTUS, says. “The CRTC thinks the cable companies are handling the community sector.” Foster, at the CRTC, says that while independent community television stations do not have access to a CRTC-regulated fund, they benefit from advertising revenues and low Canadian content requirements. Foster also spoke of a CRTC policy released in September that encouraged cable companies to negotiate and buy programming from independent community players. He said the commission considers all requests for changes to policy, but referred to CACTUS’ proposal to devote $120 million to independent stations as “ambitious.” “ is probably not going to happen so shortly after the policy is produced,” he said. The commission released a new policy for community television in August 2010 that included a review of funding mechanisms for the sector. Still, those running the independent stations say an infusion of government-regulated funding could bring community television back to health. “I think Canada would bloom. I think our media production—with that many people getting experience—I just see it going wild,” McCracken says. Watt says that some of the LPIF funding could be redirected to community stations. “I think it would certainly help.” But CRTC-mandated funding seems unlikely in the near future, and community stations are turning to new revenue models to support the production of local content. Edwards says that now is the time for analog community stations to move to digital, over-the-air broadcasting. Digital transmitters allow broadcasters to air more stations from one transmitter. Small communities could invest in a digital transmitter and use the additional capacity to broadcast a community station as well as to rebroadcast commercial stations. The tower could also be used to offer mobile broadband. The community could then use the rebroadcasting or broadband revenues to support the community station. “Once you have your own transmission tower, you can offer more services that are challenging in rural areas, like wireless broadband,” Edwards says. Edwards adds that what is preventing many communities from moving to digital is the cost of a digital transmitter. One independent commercial station told The Wire Report last year that a new transmitter could cost less than $500,000. The Valemount community station is now rebroadcasting with analog technology—a model that could also work for many small communities. “I can’t say enough about it … Over-the-air is so easy, there’s so little infrastructure,” McCracken says. “They would be real competition ... There’s a real opportunity.” While community stations say that funding plays a major role in their survival, they add that perceptions of the sector also factor into the equation. “People are disinterested in doing the kind of community television that’s been done,” McCracken says. “There’s a notice on it that it sucks.” McCracken says another key to community television is having independent boards. One of the main differences between an independent community station and a branded one, he says, is that the branded one would not broadcast anything negative about its parent company. “You can’t just pay lip-service to community television. You need someone there to welcome. You need someone there saying, ‘Come on in, let’s get your ideas down on paper,'” he says. Watt says getting the word out is crucial. “I think most people just don’t know it’s possible. It has traditionally been operated by the big cable operator.” But interest in community television is waning, making it difficult to attract volunteers to keep the stations running, Traill says. “You have got to have something special or people aren’t going to do it anymore,” he says. “We’re getting to the stage where a lot of volunteers are old guys like me. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we all kick the bucket.” news@thewirereport.ca

Community TV sector says it’s on life support, and latest CRTC policy isn’t going to save it

Broadcast | May 25, 2011

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