Rogers/City receives new 24-hour News Channel License

[299 bloor call control.]

Rogers gains licence for all-news channel
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081210.wtvnews11/GIStory/
GAYLE MACDONALD
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008
Rogers Communications Inc. is getting into the 24-hour cable news business by launching a specialty channel, CITY News Toronto, that will go head-to-head with CTVglobemedia Inc.'s all-news CP24.
Rogers applied last April to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for the broadcasting licence to operate a new English-language regional Category 2 specialty channel.
In its decision handed down Wednesday, the CRTC said the channel's programming would consist of local news, traffic, weather, business, sports and entertainment information for the city and commuting areas.
Rogers faced opposition from CTVglobemedia, whose Toronto cable channel CP24 plays around-the-clock news, traffic and weather updates. The private broadcaster had argued that the new channel would be a direct competitor.
On Wednesday, the regulatory watchdog ruled the new channel would focus on slightly different markets.
“CITY News Toronto would provide a niche news service targeted to Greater Toronto. In contrast, CP24's mandate is and has always been to serve the region of Southern Ontario,†the regulator said.
Rogers' application was also opposed by Pelmorex Inc., owner of the Weather Network, which said the new channel will infringe on its territory by running extensive weather updates. The CRTC said the new channel's programming “would be much broader in focus than that provided by the Weather Network.â€
Normally, the biggest challenge for any new channel getting on air is securing carriage on cable and satellite services. However, since parent CITY-TV is also owned by Rogers, it will face no issue getting carriage with the biggest cable operator in its market. It will, however, still have to negotiate a deal with the Bell ExpressVu satellite service to be carried.
Recently, the commission has expressed concern about the decline in local news production in Canada. It decided that CITY News will enhance the diversity of local news production in Greater Toronto. CTVglobemedia had also expressed concern that because Rogers is the dominant cable distributor in Southern Ontario, CITY News would receive carriage and priority channel placement, making it more widely distributed than CP24.
Rogers argued that – unlike CITY News – the Weather Network and CP24 both enjoy mandatory carriage, low channel placement and high brand awareness, and are authorized to collect a basic wholesale rate.
In a recent restructuring of the rules for the cable television sector this fall, the regulator removed the rules preventing new competition from entering the news market, making it possible for new entrants to come into the market.
In Ontario, CITY News will compete with other news channels such as CTV Newsnet, CBC Newsworld and CP24.
The decision comes as the landscape in cable news is already shifting in Canada. CBC executives told staff last week that market studies indicate consumer awareness of the public broadcaster's cable news channel, Newsworld, indicates the channel is lagging and needs to be revamped.
CBC is planning to overhaul the look of Newsworld in the fall of 2009. In describing the new strategy, CBC executives likened the proposed model to CP24, which keeps weather and news updates on-screen throughout the day.
Under CRTC rules, the new Rogers channel must be launched within three years of this decision, but the company will likely have it operating in 2009.

With files from reporter Grant Robertson

And CTVgm quickly responds by yanking CityNews at 6 and 11 off of CP24.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

television is soo 90's.




it's amazing how they can argue about competition.

 

[JasonParis]

More here: http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?btac=ta&id=93437&issue=12112008&eid=3311be9d-363d-4c0a-b458-21327741ac2e&stpc=CC

I'd imagine CFTO newscasts will begin appearing soon on CP24 now that they've finally severed all ties with City-TV.

Also, CP24 went to crappy 12-hour time with their re-launch earlier this month.

 

[JasonParis]

As predicted, CFTO's newscasts have replaced CITY's on CP24 as of last night.

This decision actually marks a bit of a different direction for the CRTC. Generally, they have had a policy against approving two competing specialty channels. However, any way you cut it, City News Channel and CP24 will be competing pretty much head-to-head. Perhaps they are finally willing to let the market decide the winner with some licenses.

Too bad this thinking wasn't around five years ago when Torstar' was trying to get a terrestrial license for "Hometown-TV" and we ended up with the crappy Toronto 1 (now Sun-TV) which is basically a repeat signal for American broadcasters.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Znaimer's legacy suffers the axe, but name lives on
COLIN MCCONNELL/TORONTO STAR
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/552517
Dec 12, 2008 04:30 AM
ROB SALEM
The irony's so thick around Queen Street West, you need an aqualung to breathe.

This week alone, Citytv founder Moses Znaimer has been honoured (and deservedly so) with his own dedicated stretch of the street. Onetime City and MuchMusic reporter John (J.D.) Roberts has been named to the Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame. And the now Rogers-owned Citytv – currently a temporary tenant sharing facilities with CP24, its one-time sibling, now owned by CTV – is about to become an aggressive competitor of CP24, with a licence for its own cable news channel.

Inside the building that Moses built, all is angst, paranoia and reluctant resignation. And a lot of empty office space.

CTV (but mostly CHUM) has been devastated by what is apparently now a third round of layoffs. Rogers (but mostly City) is just as axe-happy, if on a somewhat smaller scale, following up the cancellation of such long-time City institutions as Speakers Corner, Silverman Helps and Ed the Sock with its own massive staff layoffs.

Say goodbye to the entire CityPulse entertainment unit, including its two major talents, Liz West and Larysa Harapyn, already booted by CTV from CHUM cable's strip-mined Star! channel.

Already off Star!, and now entirely out on the street, is veteran producer Marcia Martin, long-time queen of original programming at CHUM and a faithful City staffer from Day One. Joining her streetside is MuchMusic's David Kines, along with pretty much all of MuchMoreMusic.

Even more regrettably, so is The New Music, pioneer promoter of local, street-level entertainment coverage, originally hosted by a mulleted Roberts and the somehow still-hanging-in-there Jeanne Beker.

Even if you are able to follow all that, you may be wondering what it will mean to you.

One thing is certain; it's pretty much over for hometown TV's local entertainment coverage – at least, that which does not involve a story of more-or-less national interest, or when anyone who can loosely be construed as a celebrity happens to blow through town.

Toronto's market-specific publicists are at their wits' end, suddenly unable to find anyone to pitch to in what used to be an essential promotional medium.

Sorry, but if you're not big enough now for CTV's etalk or Global's Entertainment Tonight Canada, you'll just have to make do with the Internet and whatever is left of print and radio.

Moses, hopefully, can derive some satisfaction from the fact that those who have decimated his legacy must now enter the building by way of a street that forever bears his name.

 

[MetroMan]

This was inevitable when CTV purchased CHUM. I think that Rogers will be a good home for City though. I think they will grow back to the Toronto centric TV station once they have their feet back on the ground at Yonge and Dundas.

I wonder what's happening with that building actually. Has anybody passed by lately?

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Well considering how the City brand has pretty much tanked in every other market, Rogers has no choice but to really focus on the Toronto station. Hopefully they will bring it back to its former glory, but seeing how horrid their news broadcasts have become lately, I don't see that happening. Even BT has been borderline irritating (to me) over the past couple months, after a pretty good run.

 

[JasonParis]

This was inevitable when CTV purchased CHUM. I think that Rogers will be a good home for City though. I think they will grow back to the Toronto centric TV station once they have their feet back on the ground at Yonge and Dundas.

Nothing that Rogers has done would suggest that though. My ears tell me that City is going to be re-positioned as a female-centric station. Basically, an over-the-air version" of cable channels like Diva, etc.

 

[lordmandeep]

CP24 is still the dominate news channel in Toronto.


6 clock news is different, but they dominate all other times.

 

[syn]

I didn't even realize CP24 was acquired by CTV; I thought it was packaged with CityTV when Rogers acquired it.

I think we'll look back at the CTV takeover of CHUM as one of the worst things to ever happen to local TV.

 

[ShonTron]

Those were my thoughts as well. To think all of this started with CRTC awarding the licence for CKXT-TV (channel 52) to Craig. That got the ball rolling that got Craig owned by CHUM (now that the CHUM-Craig alliance was broken with CKXT competing with CITY), then CHUM bought out by (what was then) Bell Globemedia.

As I understand it, with the eventual mandatory switch-over to UHF digital over the air stations, there will be more openings for new broadcast stations. That could make things interesting.

 

[JasonParis]

CP24 is still the dominate news channel in Toronto. 6 clock news is different, but they dominate all other times.

Well they don't have any local competition, so naturally they do.

 

[digi]

I think we'll look back at the CTV takeover of CHUM as one of the worst things to ever happen to local TV.

Too true!

As I understand it, with the eventual mandatory switch-over to UHF digital over the air stations, there will be more openings for new broadcast stations.

There is no mandatory switchover for broadcasters in Canada.

 

[ShonTron]

Uh, yes there is, but it will happen later than in the US.

 

[digi]

Since you have the inside 'scoop', maybe you can tell those of us who work in the broadcast engineering industry in Toronto when this changeover is to be expected?