Union to challenge Rogers’ use of third party for OMNI newscasts

A union representing the Chinese-speaking journalists and other media workers at Rogers Communications Inc.’s new OMNI Regional TV service said it will be filing a complaint with the CRTC over how the broadcaster is producing its Cantonese and Mandarin newscasts. Rogers is contravening one of its conditions of licence by signing an agreement with Fairchild Media Group Inc.'s Chinese-language service Fairchild TV to produce daily news coverage, Unifor charged in a Wednesday press release. In May, Rogers received a three-year licence to run a new national ethnic channel, OMNI Regional, which received mandatory carriage on skinny-basic cable TV packages. OMNI’s programming proposal included four new daily newscasts in Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian and Punjabi, replacing local newscasts cut in 2015. The service launched on Sept. 1. According to the conditions of licence set out by the CRTC, the licensee “shall produce and broadcast daily, national, 30-minute newscasts, 7 days per week, in each of the Italian, Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi languages.” “We think that in the context of them having promised the CRTC in writing three times that they were going to do in-house production, that when the CRTC gave them the licence and wrote it up the way they did, that that meant the licensee and not a subcontractor, particularly their main competitor,” Howard Law, Unifor’s media director, said in a phone interview. “We say they violated their licence, I suspect they’re going to say they didn’t, and we’re going to go to the CRTC and have an argument about that.” According to Rogers Media — which didn’t comment on the pending complaint directly seeing how it has yet to be filed— the company entered into a service agreement with Fairchild “to provide studio and production support” for the newscasts, and that OMNI maintains “full editorial control” over the content “produced by Fairchild for broadcast exclusively on OMNI Regional.” Rogers also said that its national Italian and Punjabi newscasts are produced in-house, as well as its current affairs programs. “We believe our arrangement with Fairchild is fully compliant with our licence requirements or we would not have entered into it,” Rogers said. “We respect our licence obligations and understand the importance of compliance, particularly for a service of this exceptional nature.” Law said the union found out about the OMNI-Fairchild agreement in mid-August and that Unifor will be filing its complaint with the CRTC later this month. He said Rogers is attempting to save money and not pay the $27 hourly wage required under Unifor’s collective agreement. “Look at the wealth of Rogers and they’re shaving pennies and nickels on this,” Law said. “It’s not just about taking advantage of cheaper labour, it’s about the impact that has on the news and viewing and integrity of the process. They promised to do something.” According to Rogers Media, there are no job losses associated with the decision to work with Fairchild, and that it plans to add about 50 new employees to the OMNI team. “These are new programs that require more resources and have resulted in job creation at both OMNI and Fairchild. OMNI will continue to recruit and will be hiring in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Alberta for our Italian and Punjabi newscasts.” The intended audience and the community at large deserved to know of Rogers’ plans in advance, Law said. In response to a question about whether the community should have a say in who a broadcaster hires to produce content, Law noted that the CRTC process is public, the CRTC is supposed to act in the public interest, and that community members did intervene. He added that the audience and Canadians “absolutely have an interest,” especially in a mandatory-carriage situation. “That even intensifies the public interest because now you’re not just talking about free over-the-air television and the public interest in that, you’re talking about people actually having to pay,” Law said. “And so, are they getting what Rogers promised for the 12 cents? I would say clearly they are not.” — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Union to challenge Rogers’ use of third party for OMNI newscasts

Broadcast | September 7, 2017

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Union to challenge Rogers’ use of third party for OMNI newscasts

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