With LPIF going, CHEK, NTV ask into a different fund

By Steve Faguy

GATINEAU - With weeks to go before the Local Programming Improvement Fund gets cut in half, two independent television stations that rely on it are seeking access to a different fund designed to help small-market stations. CJON (NTV) in St. John's, NL, owned by Newfoundland Broadcasting, and CHEK in Victoria, which is owned in part by its employees who bought it from Canwest, have asked the CRTC to add their stations to the Small Market Local Production Fund. The fund was established in 2003, to help compensate small-market stations for the audience fragmentation caused by direct-to-home satellite distributors. Funded by...