I will be summarizing the main recommendations contained in our brief of February 26. If you wish, we would be pleased to discuss them further.
As an additional contribution to your important work, we have also commissioned, and we offer you today, a research report from CMRI, the Canadian Media Research Inc. The title is Trends in TV Audiences & Public Opinion, 1996-2006, with special reference to CBC English television.
This report provides data on such topics as TV set ownership, direct-to-home satellite subscription trends, over-the-air reception and new video technologies. It also features trends in TV viewing levels, market share, and audiences for Canadian programming, as well as a review of public opinion regarding television, and CBC in particular.
I would like to touch, Mr. Chair, on highlights from this research. First is the necessity of maintaining over-the-air transmission facilities in all parts of Canada. CMRI's report indicates that 10% of Canadians depend on over-the-air transmission to receive their TV signals, which is three million Canadians. This is not expected to change in the coming years. Because they access fewer channels, these Canadians account for only 7% of viewing hours. The percentage of over-the-air TV reception is much higher among French-speaking viewers, approximately 15%.
Fourteen per cent of the viewing of CBC's English television network is over the air: in Windsor it's 51%; in Leeds--Grenville, 32%; in Peace River north, 24%; in the Kootenays, 17%; Fredericton, 11%; here in Vancouver it's 10%.
According to BBM, there are 26,100 people who watch TV off-air in Okanagan-Kamloops--our friends in Save our CBC Kamloops are on your agenda this afternoon--and here in Vancouver there are 188,700 people receiving their television over the air.
In view of the importance of over-the-air reception to three million Canadians, we were more than somewhat concerned to read in a CBC television policy submission to the CRTC last August that “over-the-air transmission will remain a viable distribution technology for the distribution of television programming only in major urban centres”.
CMRI conducted a special survey of the CRTC last autumn among a representative sample of 1,000 Canadians who do not subscribe to cable or satellite TV. In the survey CMRI asked: If you could receive only one station off-air, what would that be? Forty-five per cent of English-speaking respondents said CBC TV and 49% of French-speaking respondents said SRC TV, far ahead of CTV, Global, TVA, TQS.
Friends therefore urges you to take up this matter with CBC next week and to remind their management that all Canadians pay for the corporation and all are entitled to receive its programming, whether they live in major urban centres or elsewhere.
We also wish to raise with you some questions about cbc.ca. That's another subject you've announced as a priority for you: the new media. This arises from CMRI's research. According to BBM--that's the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement--data, Canadians use the Internet for non-work purposes for an average of fewer than four hours a week, far less than the 26 hours they spend watching TV. Even teenagers spend twice as much time watching TV as they do surfing. Including usage at work, Comscore reports that Canadians spend five and a half hours weekly on the net.
Now, cbc.ca ranked 20th among Canadian domains in March 2006. Its monthly reach was 4.2 million users, but it had only 475,000 daily users, and they spent an average of fewer than seven minutes on cbc.ca. This represents one five-hundredth of all the Canadian web traffic. At any given moment in March 2006, cbc.ca was serving only 2,200 users, approximately the number of viewers assembled by a very small specialty TV channel.
The corporation has not been forthcoming with Canadians about the cost of cbc.ca. We estimate that cbc.ca costs at least $20 million net of revenues, and employs 5% of CBC's workforce. It's a legitimate question for parliamentarians to find out the extent of taxpayer subsidy to cbc.ca at a time when, for example, the English television network is retreating from its commitment to air Canadian programs in prime time. We urge the committee to probe management on this topic. You will be asserting Parliament's right to determine priorities for the expenditure of taxpayers' money.
As you know, CBC television's prime time schedule depends heavily on sports to the exclusion of other programming. Over the 2005-06 year--the broadcast year ends on August 31--23% of CBC television's schedule was sports. This accounted for 48%, so almost half, of the total CBC prime time audience. Most of this was for professional sports. By contrast, less than 5% of CBC TV's prime time audience watched Canadian drama series or movies of the week. Foreign dramas, on the other hand, accounted for three times the audience of indigenous drama on CBC TV.
Friends recommends that the committee insist that CBC television present Canadian programs in prime time as it did just seven years ago, when 96% of its prime time schedule was Canadian compared with just 79% today. This represents a quintupling of foreign programs in prime time on CBC television over those seven years.
We've given you a little chart in this presentation that shows what CBUT Vancouver was offering in prime time seven years ago, in a representative period, and what it is offering today.
Friends has published red charts over the past two decades to map Canadian and foreign programs offered by over-the-air broadcasters in ten Canadian cities. We wish to table with this committee today our most recent red chart. I think you should have a copy. It depicts what has been available over the air here in Vancouver during the past three weeks. CBC's Canadian offerings in prime time compare with 39% for CHUM/City; with 30% for Global Vancouver; with 18% for CTV; and with 16% each for Global Victoria and CHUM's A-Channel in Victoria.
Some of us were present seven years ago when CBC's president was invited before this committee to explain why he had decided to terminate CBC's regional supper-hour programs. I distinctly recall your colleague Mr. Scott's intervention on that occasion. This committee mobilized a huge outpouring of public sentiment then, forcing Mr. Rabinovitch to compromise with 30 minutes of regional news during the supper hour. We find it an ironic but positive development that CBC has now come to its senses and has announced plans to restore 60-minute supper-hour regional news.
The CMRI research we have tabled today may explain this turnaround. When CMRI's 2006 TV quality survey interviewed Canadians about their interest in various types of programs, 61% said they were “very interested” in local news. No other program category came close. The second most popular category was national news, at 46%. The third was international news, at 33%, followed by Hollywood movies, at 27%. CMRI's research revealed that local news on television is the top priority of the Canadian people.
I would like to thank you for your attention. I would also like to thank you for inviting us to take part in your hearing here, in Vancouver.
We would be pleased to make ourselves available if you would like to explore these issues with us on future occasions. We wish the committee great success in this important investigation.