TVO, TFO approved for analog shutdown

Ontario’s French and English-language public broadcasters will begin decommissioning some of their 123 analog TV transmitters across the province on Tuesday after receiving the CRTC’s permission last week. In a pair of decisions handed down on Friday, the CRTC said it will allow TVO (CICA-TV Toronto) and TFO (CHLF-TV Toronto) to shut down a series of analog transmitters that was used to rebroadcast their channels’ free, over-the-air signals into rural and remote communities across the province. The commission said it did not have the authority to deny the requests to decommission the transmitters by the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (OECA) and the Ontario French Language Educational Communications Authority (OFLECA), which operate TVO and TFO, respectively. “While the Commission has the discretion to refuse to amend broadcasting licences, even on application of the licensee, it cannot direct the OECA or any other broadcaster to continue to operate its station or transmitters,” the CRTC wrote in one of the decisions. TVO said in April that it will cease over-the-air, analog broadcasting at 14 medium or high-power transmitter sites and “will begin to decommission those sites” on July 31. This will cause the loss of TVO’s over-the-air signal in several small Ontario cities in which the broadcaster did not upgrade to digital, over-the-air service during last year's switch to digital broadcasting, the notice said. Jeff Rohrer, director of communications at TVO, said in an emailed statement that TVO will also decommission another 105 low-power relay transmitters “over time with an expected completion date of the fall of 2013.” TFO will also be permitted to decommission four transmitters in the Ontario communities of Sudbury, Hawkesbury, Lac Ste-Thérèse and Pembroke, the CRTC said Friday. In a telephone interview Monday, Rohrer said TVO asked to decommission its aging fleet of transmitters to save money on their annual operations, and because it was becoming too costly and burdensome to fix or replace them when they malfunctioned. “We actually can’t find parts to service the transmitters because they’re no longer manufactured,” he said, adding that most of the broadcaster’s transmitters have been operating for 20 years or more. Rohrer said it would cost TVO about $500,000 to convert one analog transmitter to digital. He said the transmitter shutdown will allow TVO to find $1.5 million in annual savings. “For an organization like TVO, our budget is around $50 million, so it’s actually quite a significant savings,” he said. Rohrer said that about one per cent of Ontario households will lose access to TVO’s over-the-air signal when the transmitters are decommissioned. He said TVO will use the annual savings to help fund children’s programming and other areas where it can have a greater impact. “Given the small number of viewers who are served by the transmitters and the fact that we can’t get replacement parts, in our fiscal reality, it means that we are unable to convert the transmitters to digital,” he said. Ontario’s provincial government said in a March budget document that TVO should reduce its dependence on government grants. “This will allow it to continue as a publicly owned broadcaster providing innovative educational media while focusing taxpayer dollars on providing greater access to education,” the budget document said. In an annual report, TVO said “government funding” accounted for $43.9 million of its $64.5 million budget for the year ending March 31, 2011, the last year for which figures are available. Steven James May, a digital broadcasting expert and PhD candidate at Ryerson and York Universities, told The Wire Report he believes TVO should continue to offer a free, over-the-air signal to rural Ontarians despite its financial burdens. “Until TVO can confirm that all Ontarians are able to watch TVO through high-speed Internet, or satellite, or cable, I think that digital over-the-air is a twenty-first century solution in terms of getting TVO content out there,” May said. In an intervention submitted to the CRTC on June 26, May said shutting the transmitters would “cut off rural Ontarians, as well as many mid-sized cities from free TVO over-the-air television.” He said many of the affected communities do not have access to broadband Internet, cable, satellite, or cellphone service, and could not receive the channel through other methods. In a second decision Friday, the CRTC said it also received interventions from community members who were concerned that OFLECA’s request to decommission four of its transmitters would prevent rural Ontarians from accessing French-language programming. Those interveners also said cable, satellite and Internet alternatives are either unavailable or unaffordable for many residents of the communities where TFO’s analog transmitters will be shut down, the CRTC said in its decision. The commission said some interveners argued that “it was inequitable to deny free public access to TFO when taxpaying citizens already contribute to its funding.” In a May 25 release, the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) said TVO had offered its decommissioned TV transmitters and related satellite equipment to more than 100 communities affected by the shutdown of its analog over-the-air signals. “According to TVO, 80% of another set of 100 towers that were decommissioned last year were kept by the affected communities,” CACTUS said. Gregory Taylor, a broadcasting expert and post-doctoral fellow at Ryerson University, wrote in an email to The Wire Report Friday that he was not surprised by the CRTC’s decision to approve the OECA and the OFLECA’s requests. He said the commission established a precedent of allowing public broadcasters to decommission their analog towers in a July 17 decision that approved CBC/Radio-Canada’s request to shut down 607 analog transmitters across Canada. The CBC said it will shut down those transmitters by July 31, affecting 604 communities across Canada. “Once the CBC shut-down was approved, the TVO decision was a done deal,” Taylor wrote. Taylor said he empathized with the unique funding situation of public broadcasters during the digital transition. “Whether it’s the CBC or TV Ontario, governments knew that the transition was going to cost them quite a bit of money,” he said in a follow-up phone call. “Extra funding was not forthcoming by the federal government, nor the provincial government, so it made the transition quite difficult for both CBC and TV Ontario.” Ian Morrison, a spokesman for watchdog group the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said in an interview Friday that the “villain” of the shutdown situation of CBC, TVO and TFO is the policy of the digital transition. “It’s the government that bears the responsibility for any negative impact for the digital transition on anybody, including francophone communities,” he said. Taylor added in his email: “Governments needed to step up and they didn’t.” dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

TVO, TFO approved for analog shutdown

News | July 30, 2012

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TVO, TFO approved for analog shutdown

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