LPIF battle lines drawn: Bell, CHCH support the fund, Rogers, Shaw want it gone

GATINEAU – The CRTC’s Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) is either a necessary source of cash desperately needed to keep some local TV stations on air, or a stimulus program circa 2008 that now should be terminated. However, if the Commission is tabulating submissions for and against (and it isn’t) LPIF the 1300-plus submissions so far on the CRTC web site land squarely on the side of maintaining it. The fund was created almost three years ago (in the midst of the financial crisis and just prior to the destructive Stop-The-TV-Tax vs. Local-TV-Matters battle), before Shaw and Bell bought into...