Large Fierce Mammal

The Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) will soon be considering an application from “local” television stations aimed at forcing cable and satellite television providers to pay them what they claim to be a “fair share” of their profits. My biggest exposure to both sides of this argument comes from my morning dose of Canada AM as Mrs. LFM and I sip our way through our morning dose of coffee. This morning though, as I listened to last minute exhortations  from the “local TV” side that I go now and write a letter to the CRTC before it’s too late, I discovered that my patience has worn thin. The smell of bullshit has grown unconscionably thick.

“The Media”, with all that term entails, is a massive source of revenue that drives a never ending quest for the latest way to deliver its message. By deliver I mean sell. Television the way I grew up with it, signals sucked out of the ether by way of a spidery antenna affixed to a roof top or secreted in an attic where it lay in wait to gouge out an eye of the unwary ascender, has been a thing of the past for decades, supplanted by cable feeds and satellite receivers. Much television programming can now be obtained via high speed internet connection, and if it weren’t for a programmable digital video recorder in our house permitting capture of specific programs that invariably air when we are otherwise engaged, there would be absolutely no point in Mrs. LFM and I even owning a traditional TV. Is computer technology and broadband internet service killing television? Of course not. It’s a delivery system, nothing more.

Age has its advantages and for me in this case it permits recollection of a fact the television side seems to have conveniently forgotten. I happen to be old enough to remember the days when cable television first came to Nova Scotia. After the initial birth pains that inevitably accompany introducing any new technology, the revolutionary ability to access more than the two channels available by antenna at the time won over free access and people started to sit up and pay attention in droves. The result: traditional broadcast television stations saw an opportunity to reach a wider audience while at the same time reducing transmitter output power on the grounds that using the cable service as their primary deliver system made radiating all that expensive energy an unnecessary extravagance. In short, using cable made television broadcasting cheaper and opened a wider market for advertising sales so local broadcasters bought into it hook line and sinker. By so doing they positioned themselves at the outset to be the victims they claim they are today, all by their own hand for sound business reasons.

Another fact is that the CRTC presently requires cable service providers to carry local television feeds at no charge to the stations that generate them. A cozy arrangement for broadcasters since by their own actions they now need the cable systems to reach their audience. I’m not so naive as to believe this “free” courtesy is also extended to those of us who subscribe to cable service. No matter what regulations might say, much can be hidden in fees for service, but as a business owner of many years standing, I do not regard earning a profit to be one of the unnamed deadly sins. In the end, extortionate and unjustifiable fees are a self punishing crime that will ultimately result in the demise of a business, sung to its grave with a chorus of the classic hymn, “Go Fuck Yourself”. In the mean time, cable companies charge what they charge and if you want what they sell then go and pay them.

“Local” television broadcasters are fighting one another for advertising revenue. Everybody’s hungry and looking for ways to make a buck. Wait a minute – that sounds exactly like every other line of work. Anyway, most local TV stations are affiliates of one of the major networks, and networks are very profitable endeavours. Why aren’t they feeding their kids?

One more thing is that I can’t remember the last time I watched the local TV news. Oh, it airs briefly in periodic breaks from Canada AM, but I said “watched”, not “saw”. I’ve personally come a long way from the days of my childhood when “local” news was a combination of school closure announcements sandwiched between lame musical interludes on CKBW in Bridgewater and neighbourhood gossip. Technology will inevitably change the way we access information and right now most of my news, local and otherwise, comes to me from my daily fact finding internet sessions. Those Canada AM mornings I referred to earlier are just a way to ease into the day snuggled for a just a little longer with my Mate and our pack of dogs, but not the only way, and ten bucks more a month on the cable bill sounds like hymn singing time.

So, as usual, I’m not on either side; I’m on my own side. Marshall MacLuhan said, “The medium is the message”, and right now the message smells like bullshit.