Hate to break it to you, CTV, but For this information junkie, local TV lost its luster a long time ago
For reasons I can’t quite explain, I have found myself watching more television in the past month that I have in years. While I usually rely on Internet downloads and series DVDs of Boston Legal, Battlestar Galactica, Peep Show, and Entourage to quench my thirst for television entertainment, I have recently been hypnotized by the appeal of Dog the Bounty Hunter, Mantracker, and The Biggest Loser.

As my regular downloads and DVDs don’t include the annoyance of 16 minutes of commercial breaks each hour, my recent television experiences have been inundated by advertisements from Edmonton’s CTV station urging residents of our city to contact their Member of Parliament to “Save Local TV.”
As someone who under normal circumstances doesn’t watch much television, I was puzzled as to why Edmonton’s local corporate-owned television station was in trouble. The CTV website makes their plea thusly:

“Current regulations in Canada allow cable and satellite companies to take CTV programming without compensation. These companies then charge you, the consumer, for the programming they take for free. Most TV subscribers in Canada hold the false belief that part of their basic monthly bills goes to their local TV stations. This isn’t true. Television service providers, including cable and satellite companies, are reaping huge profits at the direct expense of local Canadian TV stations that are going out of business. As a consumer, you are at risk of losing your local station.”

I am having a hard time showing compassion for CTV Edmonton in their plight. It appears to me that the only locally produced programs on CTV Edmonton are the news hours, which are scheduled in between the regularly shown mass-produced American television programs.

On May 22, cable and satellite giants Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, Eastlink, and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance Inc. filed a complaint with the CTRC claiming that CTV violated the Broadcasting Act by airing one-sided and unbalanced coverage of its “Save Local TV” campaign. The complaint claims that “incorporating the campaign into their local newscasts violates the Broadcasting Act and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ own Code of Ethics.” These claims raise the question of integrity of news organizations when they cross the line from reporting news and facts to promoting political advocacy.

While I feel for the staff working at the local CTV station, I wonder if I am the only Edmontonian who believes that our local television stations don’t feel very local anymore. After Edmonton’s two main private television stations, formerly known as CFRN and ITV, were purchased by the massive CTVGlobeMedia and CanWest Global media corporations, the stations shed their historical local names and adopted the brand of their national owners. Many of the same hard-working journalists, technicians, and news hosts continued to work for the newly rebranded stations, but the change caused them to lose the uniqueness of their former local identity.

Local television is important, but I can’t help but reach for the remote control each time one of the local stations’ constant advertisements promoting the local news hour personalities pop on the screen. As a news junkie, I don’t really care who’s reading the news; I just want it to be informative and reliable.

As a 25-year-old information addict, I rarely turn to local television news stations as my source of up-to-date news information. With access to the Internet, the 30-second news clip doesn’t come even close to satisfying my news needs. Whether it takes the form of Google, my RSS feed, or Twitter, the Internet allows me to read detailed news reports at the time and place of my choosing. Perhaps it’s a generational gap, but I don’t feel the need to sit and watch television news at a time dictated to me by a nationally owned local news station.

As Canada’s floundering giant media companies continue to cut back and lay off journalists across the country, supporting and preserving local news reporting is very important. While I would urge all Canadians to support news organizations with a local focus, as citizens we must also demand better from our news media. There are a lot of innovative thinkers at all levels in the media, and as the industry evolves, these innovative thinkers will need our support.

As for saving local television, it was lost for me a long time ago.

Dave Cournoyer blogs at daveberta.ca.