L I N K The Ottawa Sun today reports about how the CRTC is not allowing civilians to attend hearings on the Local Television battle going on between some very large corporations.
TV in Canada is essentially a granting of monopoly status by the government to a short list of companies. It’s totally wrong in the sense that free markets are not allowed to exist.
Here in Cornwall we’re the only locally owned media company. Corus owns the local radio and an American company has stations along the border that target Canadian audiences.
There is no local TV in Cornwall owned by anyone currently. The Free Holder, Seaway News, and Le Journal are also not locally owned.
CTV, Global and other networks in light of declining ad dollars are fighting to get a share of the monies we are forced to pay for Cable or satellite service here in Canada. With analog service being phased out the option of using rabbit ears is over.
The government basically is controlling the media by granting who can have an outlet and where they can broadcast.
Even our online radio station is having issues as there are no devices like in the US for us to be able to broadcast music. One agency even suggested that we’d be breaking Canadian law by playing public domain music.
The challenges are great in simply trying to communicate the news; especially locally.
Frankly this whole battle seems to be the last gasps before TV converges with the internet. The real challenge is forcing the government to create means for local groups like our own to evolve and for Canadians to pay for the content they really want instead of forcing them to fatten up corporate calves.
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