OTTAWA – The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) has submitted its plan for the administration of the new local programming improvement fund (LPIF) to the CRTC, but the Commission is asking for public input on the fund’s allocation formula.
The CRTC said that while the CAB proposal recommends “a simple, objective allocation formula” for the LPIF, it did not provide enough specific details as to what that formula should be. In Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-113-1, the Commission has proposed its own formula.
The LPIF was established to improve the quality of local programming provided by conventional television stations serving non-metropolitan markets of less than one million people.
The use of LPIF funding is to be incremental to current local programming expenditures, with the current base level of local programming expenditures calculated by averaging a station’s expenditures for the past three broadcast years.
In Broadcasting Notice of Consultation 2009-70, the Commission included the LPIF as part of the conventional television licence renewal hearings, and questioned whether the LPIF incrementality criteria, or the approach to determining the base levels for incrementality, should be revised in light of the current economy.
Submissions are due by March 30.
