U.S. TV Stations Shooting Themselves in the Foot?

[jon]

US Television Coalition
Press Release
American Television Stations Call For Fair Canadian Import Trade Practices
- Coalition calls for equitable and nondiscriminatory consent and remuneration rights for American over-the-air TV channels imported and retransmitted in distant markets across Canada -

OTTAWA, November 8, 2012 - Today, a coalition of American television stations has come together in support of fair treatment for U.S. channels imported and distributed in Canada.

“It is regrettable that imported U.S. TV stations are denied consent and remuneration rights under Canada’s new distant station retransmission regime,” said Marla Drutz, Vice President and General Manager of WDIV-TV in Detroit, Michigan.

“Given the success and importance of the Canada-U.S. trade partnership,” said Susan Wenz, Program Director at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, “we remain hopeful this unfair situation will be put right by Canada and our U.S. stations will be included under the consent and remuneration provisions.”

“Our channels deliver value for Canadians,” said Chris Musial, General Manager for WIVB and WNLO-TV in Buffalo, New York. “We expect the right to negotiate appropriate compensation for the full value that our signals and programming deliver to Canadian markets.”

Canada’s Broadcasting Distribution Regulations were amended in 2011 providing retransmission consent and new remuneration rights for operators of distant TV stations. American TV stations imported into Canada are being denied an equitable and nondiscriminatory right of remuneration exercisable under conditions set out in the new distant station regime.

About the U.S. Television Coalition

The U.S. Television Coalition is a trade alliance of American TV stations with signals imported and retransmitted in markets across Canada. The coalition is calling for fair treatment including consent and remuneration rights under Canada’s distant station regulations.

For further information:

Francis Schiller, 613.232.1421 or info@ustvcoalition.org. Twitter: @USTVCoalition

[jon]

Lots of discussion on this on the Toronto area Radio-TV board.

Here is what I wrote to the Toronto audience, in the context of "What happens if cable companies just stop carrying U.S. stations?":

I haven't kept up with the Buffalo TV market since my parents left St. Catharines 9 years ago, but (from my 37 year vantage point in Edmonton) Spokane TV stations will likely be in a huge pickle if Canadian cable companies stopped carrying them. KSPS, the PBS station, would be decimated, as a huge part of their donations come from Canada.

But commercial stations will be hit hard, too, mainly because Spokane is much too small a market to support the existing stations "in the manner to which they have become accustomed". Advertisers are very clearly paying for that additional coverage, with the advertiser eyeing Internet ordering, cross border shopping, tourism, etc.

The biggest piece of evidence that things are still the same in Spokane TV after all these years, is the fact that TV stations in Edmonton (and, I assume, all other Canadian markets where Spokane is the cable choice) still line up their schedules to match Spokane stations for each U.S. program aired. To force the cable companies to do simultaneous substitution.

Without Toronto's CN Tower or Vancouver's Mount Seymour, and those markets' closeness to the U.S. border, OTA is no longer (post-Analogue) a practical alternative to cable anywhere else in Canada that I'm aware of.