10,000,000 is a very very large number.   Can you imagine the impact on Cornwall and area businesses if they had those impressions instead of through google ads?

CFN had an early policy of not having digital ads as we wanted to focus on local, but due to a most likely illegal boycott led by former Mayor Bob Kilger and his council we were forced to find whatever sources of revenue we could to keep the lights on.

We had clients that were told they wouldn’t get needed permits unless they pulled their ads.   These warnings of course are not written on City Letterhead, but the communications get made.

We’ve seen a lot of businesses leave our city during the four years of the boycott.

In 2011 CFN provided the city  of Cornwall with more online traffic than any of the other local outlets.   In 2012, the first year of the boycott we still provided the city with the most traffic from their old archived ads.

After 2012 the city stopped releasing the numbers. It wouldn’t be surprising if CFN is still near the top.

There are businesses that have sponsored events based on us not releasing that they supported CFN.

All this drama has been counterproductive.   The truth sometimes does hurt, but at the end of the day a community is the sum of its parts and CFN is a part of Cornwall even if Bernadette Clement and her girlfriends that gather around NAV CAN don’t like it.

NAV CAN has always boycotted CFN.  Only they can answer why as they spend an awful lot of money advertising.

Dr. Rachel Navaleenan, who’s asking council for over $250K to help fund her latest namesaked venture?  She pays for a bill board that doesn’t get close to the amount of eyeballs viewing it than a CFN banner gets.

The Seaway News charges about $20 per 1,000 impressions.    It would cost a business $500,000.00 to buy impressions there than the 10,000,000 that CFN was just congratulated by Google on.    The cost of a banner on CFN has been priced as low as $29 per month.

In other words businesses like Medical Arts Pharmacy, Your Credit Union,  MLS Insurance, Schnitzels, Laura’s, Flowers Cornwall, The Ramada Inn (and all Inns) all the real estate agents, car dealers, and of course government agencies who spend more cash on advertising than anyone else is essentially paying far more for far less.

Remember that full page ad where they compared themselves to everyone but CFN locally?  Isn’t that darling?

There comes a day when people have to ask themselves why they are in business and how they do business?   How a community reflects its values to the World.  Whether the culture of a community is inviting to outsiders or hostile?

The Freeholder for example ran a story promoting two locals that have been attempting for years to start their own local online radio show.

We covered them all the way back in 2012.  They run for a few weeks, shut down, and come back in a different incarnation.   You have to give them credit for trying.

When Seaway Radio rolled out, with its license from SOCAN, we had the President of the Chamber of Commerce at the time tell city councilors that we were a pirate station and he’d get us closed down.  I kid you not.

We produced three local shows, and hosted the Political Round Table with the late Joe Gunn (I miss that guy) and Denis Sabourin with guests like Thomas Mulcair and some very interesting people.   We ran for over a year and you can still hear the episodes on iTunes.

The point is that to achieve anything in this world you have to work together to build greatness.

It’s time for that in Cornwall. It might mean telling some bad people and bullies to dimmer down and holding a few responsible for their thuggish David Murphy like behavior, but honestly, it’s the only way to move this community forward and stop being such a laughing stock.

In my other capacity I was asked why we bought an ad with the Seaway News when they were attacking us and I shared that you buy ads because of the audience you potentially reach; not because you like or don’t like its content.

It should always be about reach and value.  Do the demographics reach your potential client or target?

Will people like Gerry Benson, Roy Perkins, Bernadette Clement, Scott Lecky,  Harry Haramis, all the members of the Chamber of Commerce, CAS, Cornwall Community Hospital, EOHU, the Police and Fire Services, Cornwall Transit, and so many more embrace that?

I don’t know…..

 

 

87,699,564

That number is the amount of page views on CFN from 2011 through 2015.    That’s what all those wacky boycott people have cost our community, and in particular our local economy.   Isn’t that crazy?

At the very least businesses in Cornwall should be able to advertise where they please without fear of retaliation from City Hall and its tentacles.

What do you think dear CFN viewers and thank you for helping those 10,000,000 million impressions roll by the last few years.