Too few analog viewers to justify cost of TV tower for Kamloops: CBC
CBC can’t justify the expense that would be required to deliver CBC-TV to Kamloops B.C. residents over the air, says a senior CBC TV executive. Residents without cablevision or satellite have been without CBC Television since CFJC-TV “disaffiliated” from CBC.
Fred Mattocks, head of English language programming, says 95 per cent of residents in the Kamloops area receive their TV via cable or satellite. “We’re just not going to invest the millions it would cost to provide relatively few viewers with over-the-air transmission,” he said.
Since CFJC-TV’s disaffiliation from the CBC, viewers who do not subscribe to cable or satellite now have only two television channels available: CFJC-TV or Global, which are affiliated and share programming.
Shaw Cablevision is required to ensure cable delivery where analog is not available. For those subscribers, they can receive the full CBC TV network, not a portion previously provided by CFJC.
A group of residences who want a return of over-the-air service have established an e-mail account (cbckamloops@hotmail.com) to communicate with each other.
Should towers exist at all?
Mattocks also said that the CBC may not be able to afford to continue building transmission towers to reach a shrinking TV audience. “One of the questions [in the current CRTC review of broadcast technology] is whether public broadcasters should provide over-the-air transmission at all.”
It’s just simply not economical,” he told the Kamloops Daily News.
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Either towers should be required in all areas of the country for CBC or people should be able to get it for free some other way… and somehow I doubt that will happen.
Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario has been in a similar position for a while, where aside from the local CTV affiliate and the French CBC channel, every other station is iffy and dependant on whether or not you live on a hill. Tell me why we get French CBC but not English CBC in southern Ontario. My parents got cable 20 years ago when the London CBC affiliate left and we couldn’t get our kids programs. I don’t have cable, so I don’t get the CBC.
I’d be willing to pay (more than my existing taxes) towards the CBC, but I don’t want to pay for cable. I know plenty of people without cable, and more who would quit if they could get more than 2 channels. Either the CBC should make sure that everyone in the country has access to an HD over the air signal (why invest in older tech), or we should be able to pay $10/month and get an HD CBC connection of some sort at our homes. Maybe it could be $10/month for 4 or 5 channels in HD. I’d love CBC, Newsworld, TVO and a local station or two.
Taking into account all the people I know who watch television shows(*), two distinct groups can be formed: those who watch via cable and those who download shows; none of them care about TV over the airwaves. Both of these groups get most of their news via the Internet. Almost all of them would rather watch TV on DVDs. I’m about to turn 32 years old and most of the people described are in the same demographic.
If those younger than myself are any indication, the number of people who care about analog transmissions will be few and far between as time goes on. If the towers could be used for Internet access, maybe they could justify the expense.
(*) Note that this is not the same as watching television. The act of sitting down and flipping through the channels is becoming less prevalent among those I know.
First, let me say that I’m not a broadcast engineer, so I have no clue if this suggestion would even work. But…
I’m almost wondering if maybe CBC can take an idea from itself to help reduce costs – renting space on another tower. CBC currently will rent out space on its towers for other people’s transmitters – thus saving the cost of a full tower to other broadcasters where signals won’t intercept.
Obviously there are towers in Kamloops, as there are 2 on the air stations. Perhaps CBC can negotiate a rental agreement to rent space on one of the other towers already there? Then they’d just be paying for the cost of a transmitter and antenna (and the rent). Of course they’d have to repeat a signal from another station, but this is what Kamloops will be getting on cable anyways.
On further consideration, most of me is still in favour of a broadcast or cheaper cable solution, as I still feel that would be best for the greatest number of people. But, since I’m obviously online, streaming & podcasting content is also a good option for me.
However, CBC would most likely be far too limited and limiting with their online content — dificulty with purchased shows, DRM, possibly choosing formats that don’t work on all operating systems — which makes this option less desireable. Of course, they could always team up with the BBC on the Dirac video codec which sounds very promissing, if a little too intense for older machines.
Add-free, all content streaming online… I’d love it, though I could probably tollerate a few adds
Until the CBC’s mandate is changed, I think it should provide free broadcast service to all communities required by that mandate. Now, the question is the channel by which to do it.
Is it sufficient to provide streaming? No, not really – very few people have the wherewithall to hook their computer up to their TV to watch a broadcast, and even if so it would require a hi-speed internet connection.
So what does that leave us with? Over the air, cable, or satellite. If the CBC does not want to put up a tower, they could come to an agreement with a satellite provider to provide all homes in town, who are not already connected to a BDU, with a free satellite dish and set-top box which could only tune in the CBC.
This would not necessarily cost a lot for the CBC as it would provide benefits to the satellite provider — they would now have a foothold into houses they wouldn’t otherwise. The CBC would have to pay the satellite provider a one-time payment for each non-revenue subscriber, but I’m sure they could negotiate it down to much less than cost due to the high potential of converting them to a revenue-generating subscriber.
I have watched the CBC situation in Kamloops closely for some time now, and I believe our national public broadcaster has failed the people of Kamloops. What has not been mentioned on here is that Kamloops gets a third over-the-air TV choice – Radio-Canada, the French CBC service from a rebroadcast transmitter for CBUFT Vancouver. Broadcasting on Channel 50, CBUFT-2 is probably viewed via over-the-air reception by fewer than four people in its broadcast area. Why can’t CBC simply change the program source for that transmitter to CBUT? Yeah, the French police will go after them, but it’s not like CBC provides the English service in all Francophone areas either – Edmundston, NB comes to mind.
Getting rid of over-the-air transmission of television signals would be plain wrong. Some people, like myself, absolutely refuse to pay for television signals. We have no desire to pay out huge amounts of money to Ted Rogers and others to watch just a couple hours of TV per day. I presently enjoy, and wish to continue to enjoy, the luxury of tuning to CBC to watch The National, then over to my local station for late local news at 11 – all free of charge.
Not all Canadians have the financial means to pay for television signals. The public airwaves are there and they need to have free access to the public. This, of course, extends into AM and FM radio.
In the United States, the last several years have involved changing over over-the-air analog transmitters over to digital ones. Most stations throughout the US are now broadcasting over-the-air in digital and HD. We are very far behind in Canada.
Finally, CBC needs to change its programming model at the local level drastically if it is to remain relevant to Canadians. CBC has evolved into mostly a national programming service completely owned by the Corporation. As CBC owns almost all of its stations, it cannot possibly afford to produce the amounts of local programming that viewers expect from broadcasters. What is the solution? Keep the national service and programming, but sell the stations and return them to affiliates. Let independent producers do the local programs. Never mind the “full CBC schedule argument”, because the schedule doesn’t need to be so big that it has no local flexibility.
At a time when wireless is taking over the broadband internet, I think Mr Mattocks is out of touch with the direction that communication is taking. First, he is relying on the Board of Broadcast Measurement for the figures to justify his decision. BBM may have accurate measurement of program viewers, but the sampling process of their surveys are inadequate for the decision that CBC TV has taken. They select most of their participants by a random selection from the local telephone directory, plus a small general random selection. The Kamloops mobility rate in the 2001 census was almost 20% per year, and is probably higher now, that group is largely excluded from the sample. They would, proportionately, tend to rely on broadcast TV.
Cell phones are not included in the survey. Those who use a cell phone as their only telephone, estimated to be 10% of the population, are excluded, again a group that would tend to be off the air television viewers. If they can’t afford the installation of a landline, could they afford cable or satellite?
Then there are the 10000 and growing starving students at our new Thompson Rivers University that would not be included. I especially wonder what the 1000 foreign students think of Canadian culture, with only two versions of the CH network transmitting here, with their plethora of second rate US programs.
Conservatively 30% of the population tending to be watchers of off air TV have been excluded by the BBM survey.
Mr Mattocks says Kamloops is in a mountainous area and that presents technical problems providing broadcast TV. Well I have lived in various locations in Kamloops, and have not experienced nearly the problems that I had in Vancouver or Victoria with local transmission. The Kamloops geography is like a large amphitheatre and wouldn’t be a particular problem. We have hills overlooking the city, negating the necessity of tall towers. Mr. Mattocks needs to visit here, before making generalities about the transmission difficulties of mountainous areas.
Then there are families like mine who simply don’t want their lives cluttered with 200 TV channels. We cancelled our cable when we realized we were spending more time trying to figure out if anything was worth watching than watching. It was our assumption that by using a CBC TV foundation and the local news from CFJC we would have a balanced point of view for our children and ourselves, without some of the unacceptable programming on cable and satellite. When the disaffiliation occurred, we were genuinely shocked to discover that rather than the full CBC we were looking forward to, we would have none. We definitely aren’t the only family who feel that way.
Finally, Mr Mattocks dismissed the idea of a form of affiliation with the local French Radio Canada TV broadcast, that would enable important English TV programs to be broadcast here without the cost of a transmitter. He stated “CBC English language service cannot highjack for its own use some part of the Radio Canada French language licensed service.” Couldn’t he at least check with them. I am sure, at the least, the local Francophone community would prefer to get the full Hockey Night in Canada, and the Stanley Cup playoffs, in English, than the meagre present coverage.
Got this email:
I think there is an error in the the email address which allows Kamloopsians to communicate with each other. It should be saveourcbckamloops@hotmail.com (SOCK).
The website is http://members.shaw.ca/saveourcbckamloops/