OTTAWA – CRTC audits of the community channels operated by some of Canada’s biggest cable companies show “numerous abuses”, according to the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).
From 2002 through 2005 (the last year in which the CRTC monitored them), CACTUS said that the audits prove that cable companies “routinely” exceeded the maximum of two minutes per hour of promotional ads, and the 15-second limit for sponsorship messages.
Calling out Rogers in particular, CACTUS said that one of its OHL hockey programs contained 24 ads in one episode, plus another 41 ads two nights later, yet none of the ads were indicated in the Rogers logs. The organization also claims that the CRTC found that 11 of the 13 systems it audited in 2002, including Shaw, Cogeco, Access, Eastlink, and Rogers, "could not be evaluated because of missing tapes, tape malfunctions, and inconsistencies between logs and tapes".
“The CRTC’s data show that Canada’s ‘community’ channels have become promotional tools for cable companies,” said CACTUS spokesperson Catherine Edwards, in a statement. “Canadians should know that cable companies collected more than $120 million from them last year so that they could have an entry point into their own broadcasting system, but very little of that money is being spent on training or access.”
Community channels were created in the 1970s to enable Canadians to actively participate in their own broadcasting system. The CRTC’s current policy requires cable companies to ensure that at least 30% of their community channels’ schedules consist of ‘access programming’, which is programming produced by members of the community.
CACTUS alleges that not only do the cable cos have difficulty meeting this minimum, but the CRTC audits found that Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, and Persona all classified staff-produced news as ‘access programming’, while some Eastlink systems reported no access programming at all.
"Given the widespread abuse of the community channel revealed in these audits, we were disappointed that the CRTC today denied our seventh request to release more recent information about the performance of cable community channels", Edwards continued. "The letter said ‘Logistical challenges and third-party privacy issues do not make this feasible at this time.’ We wonder when would be a good time, if not now?"
The CRTC hearing into community television policy is scheduled to begin on April 26.
