Canadian TV news is a hard and unfair nut to crack. Sun’s CRTC fight might make it better
The Sun News Network (SNN) has been a polarizing force in Canadian media since its April 2011 debut. Depending on which side of the political fence you stand, it is either achieving its stated mandate of “hard news and straight talk” or stridently pushing a right-wing agenda.
Love it or hate it, though, there is a great deal of validity to management’s claims that it has been treated like a “third-rate foreign news service” by Canadian cable and satellite firms.
The service is either not carried at all (it reaches an estimated 40% of Canadian households), or is so high on the dial viewers practically require supplemental oxygen to watch. All while a foreign service like CNN – which does boast some Canadian content – gets primo dial placement.
According to a December Abacus Data survey, 80% of Canadians agreed that they should have access to every Canadian cable all-news channel, while 57% agree that the news media is dominated by a few voices that think alike (the survey was commissioned by SNN).
“It is our belief that no single media source, or news channel, will ever be able to perfectly reflect the views and news interests of a country as diverse as Canada,” said SNN in a recent failed bid to obtain mandatory carriage on analogue and basic cable. “And [SNN] is improving our media by adding to its diversity and ensuring stories ignored by other media outlets are given fair voice.”
The CRTC’s decision to deny SNN mandatory carriage was a just one based on its parameters for what constitutes a must-carry service. However, in simultaneously announcing a proposed new framework for TV news services, it acknowledged an imbalance in how Canadian news services are treated.
Canadians collectively watched 138 million hours of news programming per week in 2011-12, 45% of which went towards specialty news services. The CRTC revealed last week that non-Canadian news services like CNN receive fees of $0.73 per subscriber per month from Canadian cable/satellite firms while Canadian news services receive monthly wholesale fees of $0.36 per subscriber.
TV news is expensive. It’s the reason Rogers Media shuttered its 24-hour news service CityNews Channel earlier this year, citing the now familiar shifts in advertising and viewers.
SNN lost $17 million last year on revenues of $5.6 million (including ad revenues of $1.4 million), a situation its executives have called “unsustainable.” Those losses are compounding by unrelenting financial problems at its sister operation Sun Media.
SNN parent Quebecor must bear some of the blame for the channel’s precarious position on its decision to launch a TV news service at a time when viewing and advertising is shifting to digital. It knew the associated risks when the license was granted.
Ultimately, however, SNN deserves the same opportunity as its well-placed competitors to thrive and survive on a level playing field. Its fate should be determined not by political ideology or dial placement, but the same way that any modern-day media operation is judged: Audience and advertiser demand.
Chris Powell is a Toronto-based freelance writer and unabashed pop culture geek, whose most recent accomplishment is a 166-point word (Jeez) in Words with Friends.
Media News Roundup
Magazines Canada has released new research from BrandSpark International showing that magazines – both print and digital – continue to play a vital role in the path to purchase. The research states that 75% of Canadians notice ads in magazines, third behind TV (85%) and direct mail (77%), while magazine media most effectively delivers early adopters and influencers.
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The Out-of-home Marketing Association of Canada (OMAC) has consulted with media planners to create a series of enhanced tools designed to simplify the out-of-home planning process. They include a product guide for the country’s 21 largest CMAs, offering an at-a-glance summary of OMAC member offerings grouped by format and operator; a market overviews/planner insights for Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, featuring an overview of geographic distinctions, commuting patterns and times, modes of transport and volume of travelers; and the addition of digital networks to its interactive mapping tool, which enables users to view geographical coverage of multiple operators and products/networks in a single market on the same map. The updated tool reflects OMAC member inventory as of April 2013.
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Digital replicas of Rogers Media* magazines, including Chatelaine, Maclean’s and Hello!, have achieved the 1-million download plateau. Rogers was the first Canadian publisher to create a tablet edition, for Maclean’s, in 2010.
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The Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) has introduced a series of what it calls “cost-saving rule modifications.” Beginning with the current reporting period that runs through September, Canadian newspapers will now report print and digital circulation as paid or “qualified,” a new category for non-paid and third-party copies. Several categories, including reporting circulation by weekday, price and geographic zone, are no longer required.
* Disclosure: Rogers Media owns Marketing and MarketingMag.ca
