Shaw Media is keen to start spreading the (24-hour) news. The company announced this week that it has filed an application with the CRTC for a new specialty news service that would serve as many as 28 communities from coast-to-coast.
The proposed service, dubbed Global News 1, would feature a national newsfeed bookended by local news segments tailored for each of the local markets in which it would operate.
Currently, that includes the 12 markets where Global Television currently has a conventional station, as well as eight communities where there is either no local TV news or limited competition. This would include the Alberta markets of Fort McMurray and Red Deer; the Ontario markets of Sault Ste. Marie, Niagara, Mississauga and Ottawa, along with Quebec City and Charlottetown, PEI.
Global is also proposing to partner with another eight small-market independent channels – including channels owned by Newcap and the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group – by offering them local advertising revenue in exchange for exclusive access to their news content.
How Global reported Global News 1
Troy Reeb, senior vice-president, news and station operations for Shaw Media (pictured), said that the traditional broadcast model, in which revenue generated by prime time programming helps subsidize local news programming, is being increasingly challenged by market forces such as audience fragmentation.
Shaw’s proposal, he said, addresses some of those challenges. “While a big market like Vancouver or Toronto might be able to support a 24/7 local channel, when you get down to smaller cities, they don’t have enough population or local news to be able to make that a workable business,” said Reeb.
Reeb said that recent research conducted by Nanos for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting in five “at risk” markets found considerable appetite among Canadian viewers for enhanced local news coverage.
Shaw launched a B.C.-based news service, BC1, in March 2013. It boasted just over 856,000 subscribers in it first year, and lost approximately $2.6 million on subscriber and advertising revenues of $725,793 according to CRTC documents.
The channel has made some inroads from a ratings perspective however, with its average minute audience among viewers 2+ increasing from 1,500 in its first four months to 5,000 in the first week of the fall season, and its 25-54 audience increasing from 600 to 1,800. Average weekly reach among 2+ audiences has also increased 82%, to 549,000.
“We’re still not above water on it, but we’ve tripled the audience in the first year-and-a-half and we’ve become a top 20 specialty channel in B.C.,” said Reeb. “We’re happy with the success we’ve had and don’t anticipate there would be significant changes for that service, other than we want to make sure we can go even more granular in the Okanagan market where we have a conventional newsroom.”
Reeb admitted that Shaw faces hurdles in creating a viable business, but said it “absolutely has to try” as audiences seek out 24-hour news on various platforms. “They’re going to migrate online if we can’t provide them with on-demand news on the TV platform, so we need to move the delivery of content to 24/7 [to] compete,” he said. “We’re trying to meet both a viewer need and a business need.”
Reeb said that Shaw’s “big ask” of the CRTC is the ability to sell local advertising in markets where it operates. In its application, Shaw pledges to carry 50% more than the minimum threshold for local content – 10.5 hours in small markets and 21 hours in larger markets – if granted the right to sell local advertising.
“To be quite frank I think we’ll do a heck of a lot more than that, but that’s the commitment we’ve made,” he said.
He said that Global News 1’s advertising options would mimic those of BC1, which currently offers several ad options including banner and tile ads on the “L-frame” display, as well as standard TV ads (12 minutes per hour) in the video portion of the screen.
“No channel anywhere would go as deep into local communities as this one if we get it up and running the way we intend,” he said. “We think there’s a pretty big win in it for national advertisers, while making TV more competitive with online. We think a television spot in that space is going to be a lot more effective than the scatter market online,” he said.
Audiences for BC1 have skewed younger than conventional newscasts, which tend to over-index among adults 55+. Reeb anticipates Global News 1 would garner a similar audience.
