The cities that Marc-Philippe just mentioned are among the smaller cities in the country that have suffered most from cuts to their local media. Hamilton is another place that doesn't enjoy local CBC service and it's poised to lose its only local TV station, CHCH, owned by CanWest, as you know.
Local TV programming is as important as ever. We know that people of all ages continue to turn to TV to find out what is going on and to find live, quality local programming that is simply not available on the Internet.
We believe the government should support the local programming improvement fund being developed by the CRTC using revenues from cable and satellite providers. If the government participated in the fund the way it will in the new Canada media fund, the additional money could be used in part to finance initiatives such as the one being proposed by the CHCH employees and leaders in Hamilton to try to save local TV there. Obviously the money from the fund must be available to CBC and Radio-Canada for improving local news as well.
You need to be aware of another big development in the industry that's going to change the way people connect with their local TV stations. You heard about it earlier today. In fact, in just two years one-third of Canadians could lose free over-the-air TV. Why? Because the signals you get right now are analog. In 2011 TV in Canada is going digital, which is something the U.S. already did this year. And what does it mean? It means broadcasters will be shutting down their analog transmitters, but they have said they only want to put new digital ones up in the largest cities in Canada. That means some 10 million Canadians will lose access to free local TV just because of where they live. Among the communities proposed to be shut off are Gander-Grand Falls; Edmundston, New Brunswick; Rimouski; Sudbury; Chatham; Thompson, Manitoba; Red Deer, Alberta; Kamloops; and Kelowna. You get the idea. We've identified 977 communities that are slated to be cut off by the broadcasters in the research that we did by Brian Olsen, whom I pointed out earlier.
We have researched alternatives and are proposing a model, called “multiplexing”, that allows up to six broadcasters to share a single transmitter, to share the costs. This will reduce the costs immensely from what the broadcasters claim it will cost them through the transition. Multiplexing is now done all over the world, including in Ottawa right here, by the SUN TV station, which is broadcasting two digital channels over the air from a single transmitter.
We believe it's a solution for Kamloops. The CRTC chair even told us so last week when we proposed our model there. The committee members who were on this committee last year may recall the outcry when the people of Kamloops lost their free over-the-air CBC service. The issue was the subject of a large section of your report last year on the CBC mandate. Our solution would allow CBC to return to the public airwaves in Kamloops.
We estimate that the total cost of installing the necessary digital equipment there would be in the order of $160,000. Shared six ways, the cost per broadcaster would be about $26,000--hardly unaffordable.
All viewers would need is a $60 converter box. I have a prop here. Sixty bucks is all you need. Or if they had a new TV, they wouldn't need any additional equipment to get this free over-the-air TV. They wouldn't have to pay a monthly cable or satellite bill and they would get six channels. We think it would satisfy a lot of people. What's more, they would have free access to a good range of Canadian programming, and after all, providing Canadian programming to Canadians is the number one priority of the Broadcasting Act.
So is there a role for the government in this model? We believe there is. First of all, someone needs to tell the broadcasters that it's a priority to serve Canadians, no matter where they live, that their plans are not good enough, and that it's not okay to assume that Canadians in rural parts of the country should be satisfied with having no choice other than to pay for cable and satellite.
I see you, Mr. Schellenberger, and it doesn't mean I'm going to stop.