TORONTO – The CRTC is incorrectly interpreting the BBM statistics on television viewership numbers during its examination of community television policy, says Rogers.
As part of this proceeding, the Commission issued a report on April 8 which Rogers says has been used by some critics of cable-provided community television to "prove" that Rogers TV is not often watched. The report states that in the 2008-09 broadcast year, Rogers’ community television stations generated a 0.2% share of the Canadian English-language television market.
But according to a Canadian Media Research Inc. (CMRI) study commissioned by Rogers TV, that figure is deceptive because BBM share numbers measure viewership on a Canada-wide basis, but no community television services are broadcast to national audiences.
"The share figure is extremely misleading," said Colette Watson, VP of Rogers TV, in a statement Wednesday. "Given that Rogers Cable serves approximately 20% of TV households in Canada, Rogers TV’s share is actually closer to 1.0%. This figure compares favourably to other programming services available on basic cable, including CBC Newsworld, CTV News Channel, and YTV.”
Audience reach and audience satisfaction are more suitable metrics for evaluating a community channel’s performance, according to Barry Kiefl, president of CMRI. Reach calculates the number of different people who watch the channel over a given amount of time, such as a week, a month or a broadcast season.
BBM data calculated audience reach for Rogers’ community channels as approximately 2 million viewers through most of the broadcast year.
"That’s the number we focus on”, Watson added.
Watson also said that other CMRI surveys found that over 20% of Rogers and Shaw subscribers indicated they watch the community channel at least once per week; over 70% of Rogers subscribers said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the community channel; and that 73% of Rogers’ cable customers strongly value their Rogers community television service.
