NACTV takes part in local TV hearings

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Published on Friday, February 5, 2016

By Kira Paterson

The Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) held a public hearing late in January that focussed a lot of discussion on local television stations. The hearing was held in Gatineau, Que., where stations from all across Canada were represented. Neepawa Access Television (NACTV) was represented by president and CEO Ivan Traill. 

One of the main topics of discussion was the financial trouble in which many local stations have found themselves. Traill, along with representatives from about nine other small town stations each made presentations to the CRTC board about why small community stations should be supported and why these stations are important to Canada. Traill said that many local stations, even in fair sized cities such as Portage la Prairie and Dauphin, have had to shut down because they just don’t have enough money to keep them running. He also said that the CRTC had, at one point, asked the cable companies to pay the local stations that they carried a certain amount. That never happened because the amount that the CRTC had suggested was too high. But now, Traill said that the CRTC is thinking about enforcing this and making the companies pay these stations, a smaller amount this time, but nonetheless something. 

Traill said that the main point he was trying to get across to the board was that the big stations in the big cities don’t really cover the goings on in the small communities as much as they think. There is stuff going on in small towns that the big cities don’t know about and that people won’t know about if they have to rely on those big city stations for their “local” news. He also wanted the board to know that there are a fair share of people who watch these stations, not just the residents of that community. Traill said that there are people from all across Canada who want to see their kids play in a sport that only the local station will cover, or people want to just watch a “folksy” program without all the “glitz and glamour” of big productions. The NACTV office gets calls almost every day from people all over Canada who tell them how much they appreciate NACTV’s programming, Traill noted. Many of the people in Neepawa take the station for granted, but there are viewers all over Manitoba and in other provinces who enjoy the small-town feel of the programs. He said that sometimes, big organizations like the CRTC just think of small organizations like NACTV as people with their hands out, asking for money. NACTV doesn’t just take, but it gives its fair share, Traill insisted. For the size of organization NACTV is, it gets a lot of viewers tuning in to watch it on a regular basis.

The CRTC, being a national organization, doesn’t usually concern itself too much with towns the size of Neepawa. Traill explained that they usually think in terms of hundreds of thousands, even terms of tens of thousands is small-scale to the CRTC. But since the number of small community stations has dropped significantly, the little operations like NACTV have been brought to their attention. The CRTC has gotten better at recognizing these stations and Traill said that they are starting to realize the importance of community television. 

There have been no final decisions about whether or not to fund community stations, but Traill said it would be nice if they could get some more money. It would be ideal if the station could afford to hire some staff to be able to keep it going without having to rely solely on volunteers.