Public Patsies in the Cable Propaganda War

Are you as sick as I am of all the so-called “Save local TV / Stop the TV tax” noise that’s being drilled at us repeatedly in television and newspaper ads?

Obviously, somebody’s got a lot of money at stake, because the rhetoric that’s flying from both sides of this debate is enough to make the head spin.

Both factions have reduced their arguments to pithy little catch-phrases, but you can be sure that there’s a whole lot more going on here than what these simple slogans would suggest.

The cable companies’ campaign is called “Stop the TV Tax”, while the broadcasters’ mantra is “Local TV Matters.”

The point of contention is that cable and satellite providers like BellAliant and Eastlink don’t have to pay Canadian broadcasters to distribute the TV programming that would otherwise go out via over-the-air signals (in other words, the TV stations that you could receive with just an antenna).

The broadcasters – which include CTV, Global, and CBC – are rather broadly referring to this as “local TV,” but I would suggest that there’s very little “local” content in those signals, since virtually all local TV stations are part of a network, and the networks’ schedules are heavily weighted with American or nationally-broadcast programming. Anyway, the networks’ argument is that it’s not fair for cable companies to profit from selling their programming without returning some revenue back to them.

But the cable companies say that if they have to pay for the signals, they will be “forced” to pass that cost on to the consumers.

It seems to me there’s a lot of misdirection going on from both sides here. First, the cable companies are throwing around the word “tax” pretty loosely - arguing that if they have to pay for signals that have previously been free to them, then any cost they choose to pass on to the consumer (as opposed to taking it out of their huge profits) amounts to a “tax.” What this really means is: “If we get dinged, you will pay.”

And the broadcasters are throwing around the word “local” as if their schedules are jam-packed with locally-produced content. Come on. We’re talking about news here (and perhaps the odd special), of which local news makes up, at most, a few hours a day on all of these stations’ schedules. Local news is extremely important, I totally grant that. But given the continual glutting of resources for local news production at CTV, CBC and Global, it’s clear that local content is not high on the networks’ priority lists. You and I are being used as pawns in an argument of semantics about who should foot the bill to keep these TV stations alive. Perhaps their slogan should be: “Desperately seeking a way to keep ourselves afloat.”

Both sides are seeking the public’s input at upcoming hearings before the CRTC, which they will then use as fodder to make their cases before the regulator. Surely the problems here are much more complicated than a simple “I support local TV” or “No TV Tax” vote can address.

This is a problem of an outdated business model, and a battle over who’s going to get their hands on the big bucks generated by the TV industry in Canada, and it should be up to the broadcasters, cable providers and regulators to sort it out. Manipulating the public into being patsies on both sides of this propaganda war simply isn’t appropriate.