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Belleville Intelligencer: Broadcasters have underfunded and undersupported local television for decades

The following is an excerpt from today’s Belleville Intelligencer:

…for years television networks happily let cable companies pay the freight for delivering their products far and wide, jacking up advertising rates and allowing those stations to rake in profits, which for the most part they used to purchase American programming. Now as the advertising cash cow dries up, television stations are trying to make up for it by pleading with the public for their support.

This, of course, is the funniest part of this entire bit: the drive to keep local television alive.
I’m not sure what dictionary the television networks are using to define local, but mine doesn’t define local as “Anything within a 500 kilometre radius,” which is about as close to local as these networks get. Tracking back, I can count one local television station here (CBC sort of), one in Peterborough (literally the same one as here) a regional one in Timmins (MCTV), one in Prince Albert (CTV), and combined in Simcoe, Woodstock and Brantford – zero. Except for the local cable stations of course, which were found in every one.

While in Peterborough, I once received a call from one of our “local” (Toronto) station looking for information about the ongoing city workers strike. Problem was the strike was in the City of Kawartha Lakes, and as I explained to the “local” reporter it wasn’t really possible to do a story based in Lindsay from Peterborough.

The fact is these same networks that are bemoaning the fate of local television at the hands of cable networks have underfunded and undersupported local television for decades.

Had they not done so, those stations now in jeopardy would be in a much better position to survive, without bilking either the cable companies or the consumer.

But then again, when have the facts ever gotten in the way of a good television?