Broadcasters want to force you to pay for news

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/09/2014 (4042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Imagine being forced to subscribe to, and pay for, the Winnipeg Free Press, if you want to look at any other newspapers or magazines.

Ridiculous? Of course. But it is exactly like what Canadian TV providers are asking the federal broadcast regulator to put in place.

The CRTC is holding hearings that will help determine what rule changes it makes for how TV signals are distributed — and how you pay for them.

Both the CBC and CTV networks have told the CRTC that the business model for local TV stations is broken and that the way to fix it is to force cable and satellite companies to pay for their signals — and, by extension, have consumers pay for those signals. The situation is outlined well in this Globe and Mail article.

The broadcasters want over-the-air transmission ended, so the only way you will get their signals is through cable or satellite. And they want carriage of these signals to be mandatory.

So if you watch TV, you will pay for local channels. There will be no other way of receiving them and you won’t be able to get a TV service without them. No more free TV.

This means forced payment for all the programming on networks like CBC and CTV, and in effect forced payment for local news programming. Local TV stations in Canada do almost nothing except news and current events programming. Otherwise they are transmitter stations for nationally programmed shows.

A local TV broadcast licence used to be called a “licence to print money.” An owner had a spot on the limited airwaves and few competitors, if any. Advertising dollars rolled in to pay for everything. That’s no longer the case as audiences have fragmented in the universe of unlimited TV channels.

The situation is not unlike what has happened to newspapers, where new digital media have taken away traditional revenue streams like classified ads.

Some newspapers are now asking readers to pay for digital access as well as print copies. But none would ever dream of asking a regulatory body to force consumers to sign up.

But’s that the solution proposed by broadcasters. Force every TV viewer to pay. The CRTC should see the argument for what it is — a way of broadcasters getting back into a comfortable position of having a lucrative stream of revenues, guaranteed.

Taxpayers might expect that the CBC, at least, would continue to be free. But the CBC sees no problem asking for both its public subsidy and these viewer payments. A CBC executive likened it to VIA Rail, which gets a federal subsidy and still charges for tickets.

It’s not the same, for the simple reason that people can choose to take VIA Rail, or not, and they do not have to take the railway if they want transportation.

TV viewers have already had experience with forced funding of local programming. The CRTC established the local programming improvement fund that collected money from cable companies to fund local programming in markets of fewer than one million people. All Winnipeg TV stations got money from the fund, which took in more than $100 million a year from cable subscribers.

That program ended as of August 31 this year. The CRTC should leave it that way, and require broadcasters to adapt to changes in markets in ways that don’t include forced payments by all TV viewers.