Could anyone, actual you Mac, tell me a straight answer regarding Interstitial (pronounced…interstishial)and/or Filler program payments broadcasters in Canada (and/or anywhere) pay producers to create or find this material?

Why do i want to know? Because I am starting a group / coop for All Artists called TorontoEntertainmentHaven (T.O.EH) and i was thinking of making a short short film section to produce Filler type programs etc. I really need to know how much broadcasters have paid or will pay or prefer to be paying for these and how long they are on average?? Thanks so much – Gord Welke-416-901-4436

Or in words that even a non hockey watching Edmontonian like me remembers:

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

or perhaps

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

Personally I think zeFrank may have said best in his piece called “Waves”:

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/02/020507.html

(Actual piece begins about 40 seconds in after his intro bits)

So many things to reply to, so little time…

“Jeff Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

The point about American programming being needed to fund local news is misguided in itself. If buying all those U.S. shows is so expensive why not leave them in the States and produce local and Canadian programming?”

- missed the point. Showing American shows is profitable. Why stop buying them? Keep showing them and don’t spend the profit on local news (would be the logical argument – not mine)

Time shifting
– If that’s your major concern with the cable networks, then just send them pre-time-shifted content with local ads in. It’s not like Shaw has to show the same stuff to the whole country, they can be city specific. Of course this wouldn’t work with satellite providers (who do have the send the same thing to the whole country, by my understanding). Seems to me like that would help.

Topic in general – if Cable & Sat providers didn’t carry your content, you’d have less viewers. Less viewers = less ad money. It’s like Metro (an ad supported newspaper) trying to charge a building to have their newspaper box in it, even though it will increase Metro’s readership and thus ad income.

Btw guys – don’t forget, we’re not normal when it comes to media consumption. Just because you don’t turn on the TV/watch local news, doesn’t mean everyone else is turning off and going to Twitter instead (they’re not). As Lloyd said, local news viewership has hardly changed at all, which is something I can believe and understand.

http://tinyurl.com/d37vvt

With digital TV coming to Canada, those newsrooms should be able to distribute their news content not only on TV and their websites, but through mobile phones, taxi cabs, elevators – anywhere digital content can exist.

Lloyd, your points are very well thought out and communicated, and all of them make sense. I wish I could say that they’re all still relevant. Your discussion points got me thinking about the future of TV, not only within Canada, but the US as well.

With products like Hulu integrating into set top application (like Boxee & Media PCs), along online distribution methods such as torrents, means its only a matter of time before all traditional broadcasting is offered in two models. Air ways and online. We may even see a complete shift to a solely online distribution model within a decade (yes, it may very well happen that fast).

You argue time shift does not occur in the US. However it does. “The internet” often has tv show released within an hour of their EST broadcast, allowing PST folks to view the content before it’s aired locally. Although this is an illegitimate source or broadcasting, its popularity speaks to the demand for the options this distribution model offers.

Hulu is also making huge inroads in the US, recently acquiring ABC’s shows (including Disney). This leaves CBS as the only broadcaster without content on Hulu.

Why doesn’t CTV or Canwest pioneer this service for Canadians? Global does have something similar already, but in order for these type of products to be successful long term, there needs to be the ability to view the services anytime, anywhere, by anyone, by any application of their choosing. These applications would feed from your online broadcast servers. You then can insert local ads into the stream. Which ads play can be governed by the IP address (host name resolution) of the user watching the stream. Your local advertisers still get their messages and products out to market.

What’s great about Hulu, is that it’s starting to benefits everyone. Viewers are not bombarded with ads continuously, as there is only one 30sec ad at the planned commercial breaks. When viewers are overwhelmed with ads, it only makes them want to hit fast forward on their PVRs. Online viewers also can’t skip over the ads, making the advertising more effective. And the viewers get on-demand programming, getting any show at any time, including local news.

Paul Turnbull’s comments on how he watches his media is becoming the norm. I barely have the TV on anymore. I either am watching HD only channels (of which CBC is the only local station available in HD on Shaw), or watching HD podcasts from companies like Revision3.

This campaign of CTVs, while understandable, is also proof of the warning signs that the tech community saw coming 3-5 years ago. Newspaper and traditional broadcasting WILL fall. It’s only a matter of when. I urge you to be prepared for this upcoming media distribution model, or be prepared to go out of business.

Thanks for reading.
@techlife

I don’t have cable, I don’t watch broadcast television. I buy my shows through iTunes, DVDs and any other means I can get them. Buying my shows this way, and I don’t mind paying for them, is cheaper than cable and means I watch when I want to with no ads. This is valuable to me. CTV and the others who hold licenses to various shows iTunes doesn’t carry can get my money by allowing iTunes to carry those shows.

As for local news, I used to work in media monitoring. Every night for a year, I watched every local newscast in Edmonton. I don’t miss them. I find radio, web and newspapers cover local news far more efficiently and comprehensively than sitting down for an hour watching someone else’s idea of what’s important.

I recognize that currently people like me a are tiny fraction of the market but it’s a growing fraction. By the time my kids are adults I doubt there’ll be daily newspapers and I fully expect the concept of TV channels will be fading away. Channels and schedules exist because the original broadcast technology dictated them. They continue to exist, not because the technology requires it anymore, but because a lot of company’s business models are based on them. Current technology does not require the broadcast model. Shows can be delivered and sold a la carte. The successful companies 10 years from now will be the ones who realise this.

P.S. If cable companies are required to carry local TV in local markets then shouldn’t have to pay for it. However if they timeshift local stations to other markets and sell it as a feature to their customers then they should have to pay for it. If they are required to pay for local TV in local markets then they shouldn’t be required to carry those stations. I am assuming that currently the CRTC requires cable companies to carry local stations.

In a short period that may appear costly but if the current model is not sustainable wouldn’t you come out the winner in this scenario? Over a longer period of time you control more of the costs. And you’d be producing local, regional and national content that is exclusive and could include more catered advertising.

Not only would the company have more control over what goes where, the local and regional flavour of shows would defeat a lot of time-shifting and boost the value of local advertising.

I also think Mack has it right when he points out a lot of advertising is national and regional buys. If that is wrong (and I’m talking about all programming, not just during news) maybe that would be the way to go to ensure time-shifting doesn’t lose a national company so much money.

The other argument that gets lost in translation is that of “local TV.” It’s not local TV it’s local news. (And the point about how “local” the news is has already been addressed.)

If CTV Edmonton closed up tomorrow there would be one or more sources to fill that void. Global, CBC and City TV might see boosts in their audiences and maybe increase their local content, websites might pop up with local news, etc… There would also be more MC availabilities for other local celebrities and new hosts.

On the CTV open house…give someone with a little know-how the same amount of advertising, social media and traditional coverage and see if they can’t get 3,000 people to an event.

I do have a problem with the statement that ad revenue from primetime is subsidizing local news – if this were GM and local news were a GM car brand (and again I’m inviting the retort that I’m oversimplifying here) then wouldn’t local news get the chop? I’m sorry if this sounds a bit heartless – just a dull-blade comparison.

In terms of value for viewership, we could go down the statistics game here – just because someone is watching doesn’t mean that they would miss it, or that there’s a competing alternative in that time slot that they are preferring your news to. Also, I’d imagine that it’s more of an older demograph that watches the news.

OK, to attempt more constructive sounding thoughts – rather than chop or continuing to invest primetime revenue in news, why not fill 6 or 11 with cheaper filler and invest in really producing quality canadian content to compete with the US or UK or be bought worldwide or even straight to digital purchase/download. Has this been tried and failed? There must be some brave new unconventional shift.

It’s difficult to say that people shouldn’t need to pay but also accept that people skip ads. I hardly watch anything live because I don’t have to anymore. I am prepared to watch re-runs on global or ctv websites and sit through those ads, because I can watch when I want. I appreciate that the shift to selling online video ads is likely much harder and that the ad market monster is extremely slow moving, having tried to sell online video ads in 2000, way ahead of its time!

I’d agree about examining the speciality services.

All just brain dump and I’m not claiming to know anything. I’m the kind of person that wants to figure out the best result all round if possible, but I do software solutions more than business solutions. However, I like to through conventional wisdom out the window once in a while and see what’s new that may work.

On your last point:

I don’t think my argument was weak at all. Allow me to reiterate: you’re using the fact that you and your employees are involved in the community as proof that local TV needs to be saved. I’m saying that there are thousands of Edmontonians who volunteer their time, money, and other resources to worthy causes each year, and they would do so with or without CTV. I presume you’re not suggesting that CTV employees are involved in the communtiy solely because they work for CTV, because I don’t think that’s the case.

Now then, what makes CTV special? The advertising you donate. More than $2.5 million. No where did I diminish the importance of that contribution. I fully recognize that it makes a big difference for local charitable events.

What I think you fail to realize, however, is that if CTV went away, there would NOT be a massive void. Another entity (or entities) would fill it. And that entity (or entities) would replace CTV in reaching that mass audience. The charitable events would just have new partners, that’s all.

Therefore, I would suggest that it’s your argument that is weak! Citing your involvement in the community isn’t a strong reason to “save local TV”.