Riley Brandt

The shift from analog to digital TV means rabbit ears will only work in big-city markets, warns a Canadian media union.

A media union says the end of peasant vision (in other words, free TV) is in store for many Canadians, a warning that comes as television broadcasters fight a noisy PR war with cable and satellite companies over the industry’s future.

The federal government has told broadcasters to switch from analog to digital TV transmitters by August 2011, but broadcasters say it’s too expensive to make the change outside big-city markets. That means that while Calgarians will still have access to free television by using rabbit-ears with a digital TV, Canadians living outside the range of big-city transmitters will have to pay a cable or satellite company if they want to tune in.

“This plan assumes that TV is really just a consumer service,” says Karen Wirsig of the Canadian Media Guild, the union that represents about 5,500 broadcasting and newswire employees, including CBC’s. “It means that low-income people who live outside of range of a transmitter really have, if they choose to pay their rent instead of their cable bill, no access to this very important mass medium.” Wirsig’s group says one-third of Canadians could end up without access to free local TV after the transition in 2011.

On the other side, broadcasters including CBC say over-the-air viewers make up less than 10 per cent of total Canadian viewers. CBC also says broadcasters have no obligation to provide TV for free outside major markets. “If you look outside those areas, the majority of people are already taking their service via cable or satellite,” says CBC chief regulatory officer Steven Guiton. “So what you’re left with is just one or two per cent that wouldn’t have access.”

The digital-transition question is one of several contentious issues being tackled at two key Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearings slated for the next two months. Broadcasters including CTV, CBC and Global — struggling with a sharp drop in ad revenue — have banded together in hopes the CRTC will force cable and satellite companies to pay broadcasters a fee to carry their channels.

“We only get revenue from advertising,” says CTV Calgary general manager Len Perry. “That alone will not support the demands and the requirements of a local television station in Canada…. We need that second stream of revenue.”

This is the first time the CRTC is considering what’s called “fee-for-carriage”; in the past the regulator has flat-out dismissed broadcasters’ push for carriage fees.

Opposing broadcasters are immensely profitable cable and satellite companies, which argue that fee-for-carriage is a “bailout” for broadcasters that would cost cable consumers up to $10 a month extra. “This is really an attempt to load onto consumers their own business problems,” says Ken Stein, corporate and regulatory senior vice-president for Shaw Communications Inc.

Both sides have been aggressively trying to persuade Canadians using newspaper and TV ads. Cable companies like Shaw denounce possible carriage fees as a “TV tax,” while broadcasters have rallied behind a “Local TV matters” banner. Shaw, CTV and CBC all decline to give numbers when asked how much they’ve spent on their ads. “Whatever it is, it’s small compared to what they’re going to hit consumers [with],” says Stein.

Some people have denounced both ad campaigns as propaganda, and many Canadians are simply confused by the battle. “I think this is pretty much an inside baseball kind of thing,” says Mount Royal University communications dean Marc Chikinda. “Quite a lot of money is being spent on the part of both sides to try and convince I think very few people who want to truly understand what’s at stake.”

While broadcasters have raked in money in the past, the industry is now in crisis since ad revenue cratered last year, Chikinda says. “I think there’s a middle road. Probably the broadcasters are asking for a little more than they actually need, and I suspect the cable people can probably get by by giving up some money for that product that they’re getting from the TV people.”

Broadcasters, meanwhile, are being called out for casting themselves as defenders of local TV when they’ve increasingly replaced local content with American programming, and have shut down local stations in small Canadian cities like Red Deer, Alta. and Brandon, Man.

Wirsig says the “Local TV matters” campaign is especially “dubious,” given the plan to end access to free TV in much of Canada. “Under this plan, the local stations will disappear. And to be quite honest, I think the big national networks don’t really care. They might even be happy.” It frees them of local obligations, she says, while still reaching people in those areas via satellite or cable. “It’s not about reaching citizens with stories by, about and for Canadians…. It’s really about reaching consumers and eyeballs.”

CTV is asking the CRTC to let it keep using analog towers after the 2011 deadline, saying it can’t afford to make the digital transition by deadline because of “the deteriorating performance of its conventional television group.”

CBC, meanwhile, is suggesting that if the CRTC OK’s fee-for-carriage, the regulator should make cable companies introduce a “pared-down basic” package of mostly local stations, with the content and maximum price set by the CRTC. “It creates an affordable package for everybody,” says Guiton.