TORONTO – The union which represents media workers at Rogers' OMNI TV said Wednesday it is taking legal action in response to the company’s decision to have Fairchild TV produce its newscasts in Mandarin and Cantonese.
"This $20-billion broadcaster is in violation of its CRTC licence to produce its own news coverage," said Unifor National president Jerry Dias, in a press release. "Rogers promised the CRTC it would cover the news with its in-house staff. It is not supposed to get millions in customer fees, and then renege on that promise as soon as it gets the CRTC licence."
Rogers was granted a three year license in May to remake OMNI from a broadcast channel to a national, multicultural OMNI Regional service. Last month it announced the content deal with Fairchild saying they will be done under the editorial direction of Rogers Media and televised exclusively on the new national OMNI Regional channel.
OMNI has also launched new Italian and Punjabi language news half-hours but those are being done in-house.
The CRTC approved the licence for OMNI Regional to operate as a must-carry, multicultural specialty service featuring a mix of news, current affairs, lifestyle and entertainment programming. The CRTC made its decision after a protracted debate on the matter in the industry (which Cartt.ca wrote about here, here and here) and despite the early objections of numerous other ethnic broadcasters, including Fairchild TV.
Dias criticized Rogers for announcing its news deal with Fairchild TV only after the CRTC licensing hearing, “without the Chinese Canadian community having the chance to debate a monopoly on Chinese language local and national TV news,” says the release. Fairchild is the only other Canadian broadcaster regularly producing news in those languages.
Unifor’s release also made it clear it does not like the editorial slant of Fairchild – which is one of the reasons it is protesting. "The news director of Fairchild TV is anti-Trudeau, pro-Conservative, and pro-Trump," said Dias. "OMNI’s decision to contract out the work to its only major competitor denies its viewers a different perspective and a fresh voice. We believe the public had a right to know about this."
(Ed note: Since we don’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese and do not watch Fairchild, it is difficult for us to independently assess these claims.)
So, Unifor said it is filing a complaint to the CRTC on the licensing issue as well as a labour grievance against the contracting out.
Through a spokesperson, Rogers Media declined to comment as it has not yet seen any official complaint or filing and the company wants to reserve reaction until then.
– Greg O’Brien
