Current rules are working for local programming, say broadcasters
By Steve Faguy
IN RECENT LICENCE renewal decisions, the CRTC has made it clear that while there are no specific quotas for local news on the radio, it expects all commercial stations to include local news as part of their spoken-word programming. In its review of commercial radio policy, it is asking if there should be a weekly quota for news.
“It sounds like they want to regulate us to do more news,” says Rod Schween, president of the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group. “I would say I understand why they may have that concern because many radio stations have dropped news in many places. We don’t do as much news on radio as we used to either.”
But Schween thinks the Commission should consider the multimedia approach Pattison and others have embraced: Their radio stations are paired with local news websites that provide lots of local news, available on demand, something rather common across the country.
“We didn’t do all the work we did around Covid because we were regulated to do it. We did it because it was the right thing for our communities and it was the right thing for our advertisers and it was the right thing for operations.” – Rod Schween, Pattison Broadcasting
“People aren’t setting their watch to hear an 8 a.m. newscast anymore,” Schween says. “They want it on demand when they want to have it. They don’t want to wait until the top of the hour. Now, we still do that, because there is this segment of the population (that need that), but more and more listeners’ habits are changing and we need to change with them or we’ll get left behind – and I really hope the Commission doesn’t decide that they want to get in the news regulation business.”
Schween points to how his stations responded to the Covid-19 pandemic as evidence they don’t need a regulatory push to provide more local news.
“We didn’t do all the work we did around Covid because we were regulated to do it. We did it because it was the right thing for our communities and it was the right thing for our advertisers and it was the right thing for operations.”
Announcers, he says, “aren’t sitting there doing fart jokes anymore. They’re providing important information and talking about important topics. That might not come in the form of a normal newscast the way it used to be delivered because that’s not what the audience is expecting. So, I’m really worried that we end up with regulation that’s not relevant to what the audience is looking for.”
Stingray Radio president Ian Lurie also says local news comes in a different format on the radio and shouldn’t be limited to a newscast. He adds in his submission that radio and local television shouldn’t be treated the same way in terms of news.
Conventional television, he says, is general interest with a wide range of programming. “Radio, in contrast, is more niche. There are stations specifically focused on a type of music or all talk stations that offer news or sports programming. In this respect, radio has much more in common with a discretionary service,” said Lurie.
“Viewers who want traditional news will tune to CTV News Channel, not a music video service. While a news/talk station may provide detailed local news coverage, putting a lengthy traditional newscast on a Top 40 music station will simply cause the listener to turn the dial or, worse, look for a more appealing alternative outside the system.”
“People listen to a radio station for one thing: local news. That’s number one. That’s why we employ news people.” – Jon Pole, My Broadcasting
For Jon Pole, president of My Broadcasting Corporation, local news is at the very heart of what his stations do. He said his company has surveyed listeners since the company launched in 2004, and the top answer they give for why has always been the same. “People listen to a radio station for one thing: local news. That’s number one. That’s why we employ news people.”
Pointing to recent layoffs of newsrooms at Bell Media’s CJAD 800 in Montreal and NewsTalk 1010 in Toronto (which came along with Pole’s own show being dropped by those same stations), he said MBC, with music stations in small Ontario markets, has bigger newsrooms now than those big news-talkers, “which doesn’t make any sense except that it makes complete sense, because the people that turn on our radio stations, they don’t care if Rod Stewart is played at the right quarter hour. They don’t even really care of the announcer is super smooth, super funny or a big brand name… What they really want is the local news, and local news encapsulates a lot of things. It’s just not the two or three minutes with the top of the hour. It’s a lot more than that. It’s the stories you can’t get elsewhere.”
In the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ submission to the CRTC’s radio regs review, which is supported by most larger broadcasters, it says listeners want news in “bite-sized bits, not long dissertations,” and calls for more flexibility. It also says in-depth news and information programming the CRTC may be interested in is “essentially no longer viable on radio without support.”
Nevertheless, it says, commercial radio stations are committed to local news. “Covid-19 has once again proven that — even with drastic revenue losses — radio stations have prioritized local news and information.” It said revenues are projected to decline 29% this year, but news hours are up 5.4% and spending down only 0.8%.
As far as regulations, the CAB endorses the CRTC keeping its current rules — requiring FM radio stations provide at least 42 hours a week of local programming if it wants to have local ads. (AM stations do not have the same requirement.) The CAB does not support any quotas specific to local news.
“Any reductions in local programming are directly related to radio’s viability,” it writes, “thus the best thing the Commission can do to support local programming is to introduce measures that increase radio’s viability and competitiveness.”
