Local Television Fairness

October 01, 2009
Private broadcasters have been portraying the so-called “fee for carriage” issue as one that must be addressed to ensure their financial survival, but there are other aspects to the topic.

The first is the simple fairness involved in the matter. Profitability is not the issue. More pertinent is that the cable companies are taking the product these broadcasters produce and are deriving income from it, without having to compensate the local broadcasters. The majority of television channels carried on cable systems receive revenue not only from paid advertising but also from the cable systems themselves. To have the cable companies pay for some but not all of the channels they make money from does not seem fair, especially since local stations are usually the most-watched channels on the cable system.

Another issue is which channels cable companies choose to carry. While local channels do still use traditional over the air broadcast methods, the overwhelming majority of consumers subscribe to cable and do not watch over-the-air broadcasts. I feel that local cable companies should be required to carry local channels as a condition of licensing. For example CHCA, in Red Deer (Global), the only local station, is not available on Shaw Cable in Red Deer, which instead carries the Global outlet from Edmonton. This means less local news coverage available to cable subscribers, and could also have an unnecessary negative financial impact on CHCA.

It would seem to me therefore, since cable companies have a near monopoly, that it would make sense that they be required to carry all local stations as part of their basic package. As a matter of fairness and equal treatment it would also seem that they should be required to arrange fair compensation for all channels they carry.

What do you think?