Thunder Bay, Ontario may lose its commercial stations Sept 1

[Mr Tony]

Kinda sad if you ask me

Thunder Bay TV stations surviving on life insurance cash, shutdowns looming
http://globalnews.ca/news/2481036/t...ing-on-life-insurance-cash-shutdowns-looming/

Thunder Bay, Ont., could see both its local TV stations sign off for the final time Sept. 1. The stations are currently in the red and running on funds from life insurance policies, not revenue, Don Caron, vice president and general manager of Thunder Bay Electronics told a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CTRC) panel in Gatineau, Que., Wednesday.

The reason we’re still operating is that we’re burning those non-broadcast assets to stay in business, awaiting to see if there’s some way we can work out and the Commission can hear our plight of angst, if you will.”

This isn’t a threat, Caron said, it’s simply the reality for Thunder Bay Electronics, also known as Dougall Media. The two stations in jeopardy are CKPR and CHFD – Global Thunder Bay, which has local programming along with Shaw Media content.

The state of local TV has grown increasingly grim as advertising revenues plummet. The change is due to a number of factors, including competition from speciality channels and Internet content providers such as Netflix.

 

[Mr Tony]

Northpine has an excellent synopsis of it (and the struggles)

The only news-producing TV station in Thunder Bay and all of northwestern Ontario could fold this year, the station's general manager revealed during a regulatory hearing last week.

Dougall Media's Thunder Bay Television consists of CTV affiliate CKPR-DT/2 and Global affiliate CHFD-DT/4, which are the only news-producing TV stations between Winnipeg and Sault Ste. Marie. Current news offerings include a flagship hour-long broadcast at 6 p.m. on CKPR, a half-hour broadcast that airs at 11 p.m. on CHFD and at 11:30 on CKPR, and a half-hour morning show at 9 a.m. on CHFD.

During a hearing about the state of local TV, GM Don Caron told the CRTC that the TV stations are operating off the proceeds of life insurance policies following the deaths of the station's owner and general manager last year, as well as profits from its sister radio stations. "We're the most desperate of the stations sitting here before you," Caron told regulators, saying the TV stations could shut down in September.

CKPR and CHFD, known jointly as TBT, are among 29 stations that the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting say could shut down this year unless regulators restore the Local Program Improvement Fund, which existed from 2009 to 2014. The group says small Canadian stations are suffering from a combination of economic challenges, audience behavior changes, the removal of regulatory protections, and the loss of public subsidies.

Canadian stations can't negotiate for retransmission consent fees and don't have as many programming protections as their U.S. counterparts. Multiple out-of-market feeds of each Canadian and U.S. network are available on cable and satellite, with CKPR and CHFD carried on three-digit satellite channels buried among dozens of out-of-market stations. On cable, TBT competes with the major Minneapolis stations, five other CTV affiliates, and two other Global affiliates.

CKPR has been able to benefit from Canada's "simultaneous substitution" rule since switching from CBC to CTV, which simulcasts a lot of American programming, in 2014. Sim-sub requires cable companies to substitute the local station (including its local commercials) over the top of an American station showing the same program at the same time. This week, it appears about half of the prime-time programming on TBT's two stations will override Minneapolis feeds, as well as six hours of weekday programming in other timeslots.

If CKPR and CHFD do go off the air, the city of 108,000 would be left with just one broadcast TV signal -- the non-commercial TV Ontario network. The city had four TV signals until the CBC shut down a transmitter carrying the French-language Radio-Canada network in 2011. The CBC also chose not to place a TV transmitter in Thunder Bay after CKPR dropped the network, citing a high cable/satellite penetration rate.

 

[Mr Tony]

Unlike the US in Canada most of the networks there (CBC, CTV, Global) are owned by the network themselves and not affiliates.

CTV has the most now at 5 (CHEX Peterborough and CHEX-2 Oshawa, CKWS Kingston Ontario, Thunder Bay and Lloydminster, Alberta...Lloydminster has the only CBC affiliate) and 1 Global affiliate (Thunder Bay). There is an independent station in St Johns, Newfoundland called NTV and they have some global shows (and some CTV too)

 

[CK SatGuy]

The CRTC has been conducting hearings in the last couple weeks to figure out how to save broadcast tv and local programming in Canada. The biggest requests have been (1) to bring back the local programming improvement fund (or something similar) which ended in 2014, and (2) try to come up with a new business model to keep tv stations afloat. Between the end of the LPIF and the fact that advertising revenues have been dropping badly in the last year, a lot of stations up there are in some trouble. There was a report that came out that half of Canada's tv stations could shut down by 2020 unless something changes for the better.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crtc-local-tv-1.3418341
We're already seeing that some stations are on the brink, the biggest so far being CHCH (the independent superstation) from Hamilton, Ontario having to file for bankruptcy back in December.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamil...ancels-friday-and-weekend-newscasts-1.3361492