Canadian Broadcasters Pan Planned DTV Transition PSAs
TORONTO -- With Canada’s DTV transition seven months away, broadcasters are fighting over the government’s plans to make stations air two different public service announcements (PSAs) about the switchover several times each day. In recent comments to the Canadian Radio-TV and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), national broadcasters CTVglobemedia Inc. and Shaw Media and Quebec broadcaster V Interactions Inc. complained about the potential revenue loss of running the pair of PSAs. Other major broadcasters, such as CBC/Radio-Canada, complained that the government’s proposed PSAs could confuse viewers by overloading them with too much information at once. Consumer groups complained that the government’s plans wouldn’t go far enough in educating the public.
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The CRTC’s proposed regulations for the DTV transition call for broadcasters to start airing the two 30-second PSAs by March 31. The independent agency wants the first PSA, designed to inform viewers that analog terrestrial signals will halt on Aug. 31, to run six times a day in the spring and eight times a day in the summer. The CRTC wants at least 25 percent of the spots to run in prime time. In the runup to the U.S.’s full-power DTV transition in 2009, the FCC required broadcasters to air PSAs.
The second DTV transition PSA in Canada is supposed to tell viewers that they may lose service because of the switchover from analog transmissions. The CRTC has proposed that broadcasters air this spot at least once per day, as well as three times a week in prime time.
CTV contended that these proposals mean its 23 stations would collectively have to air nine hours and 23 minutes of PSAs per week at the start, and up to 12 hours and four minutes of spots in July and August. CTV said the spots would fill up to three hours and 15 minutes of air time during prime time, particularly cutting into potential ad revenue. “Requiring conventional broadcasters to air the PSAs during prime time represents a loss of valuable commercial airtime that would otherwise be used to generate advertising revenue at a time when such revenue is desperately needed by conventional television broadcasters,” CTV told the CRTC. To remedy the situation, the broadcaster recommended that the CRTC combine the two PSAs into one, effectively “simplifying the message to consumers and making more efficient use of the valuable commercial time dedicated” to the airing of the spots.
Shaw Media sounded a similar theme in its filing, also highlighting the potential loss of prime time ad revenue. “A mandated communications plan will involve the production of PSAs, training of customer service staff, and, most importantly, the use of limited airtime (particularly during peak viewing periods), which represents our only source of revenue-and therefore, represents both a real cost and an opportunity cost through lost and unrecoverable revenues,” Shaw said.
V Interactions likewise harped on the potential ad revenue drain of the proposed PSAs. Claiming that the costs of airing the spots would be substantial, the Montreal-based broadcaster argued that it would have to assume the expense at a time when broadcasters are still hurting from the recent recession. It also argued that the PSAs would unduly hike the costs of the DTV transition for broadcasters.
CBC objected to the amount of information that the CRTC wants the PSAs to cover. The public broadcaster contended that all the information might backfire, prompting overwhelmed viewers to either tune out the spots or disregard the information altogether. Instead, CBC suggested that the CRTC cut the proposed 30-second PSAs to streamlined 15-second ones that would lead viewers to corresponding websites and toll-free phone services. These supplementary services, CBC said, could then “provide detailed information to the small percentage of consumers who will actually be affected by the digital television transition."
Consumer groups urged the CRTC to impose greater PSA requirements upon broadcasters. OpenMedia.ca said broadcasters should have to air the PSAs in all Canadian TV markets, not just the larger, mandatory ones, where the DTV switch must happen this summer. It also called for the creation of a national working group -- consisting of government officials, public and private broadcasters, consumer groups, community TV organizations and other industry groups -- to oversee a national public awareness campaign about the switch to digital. “We need a central body capable of explaining the transition, market by market, from an individual viewer’s perspective,” OpenMedia.ca said.