At On Screen Manitoba, we're investigating a broadcast project that would be an example of the kind of local initiatives that arise across the country: an educational broadcaster or webcaster who would use low-cost digital technology to connect the far-flung communities of our province, offering high-quality education and training opportunities as well as entertainment. Projects like this might take the pressure off national broadcasters to carry local content. This could be one of the solutions, but it's not here yet, and local programming is still something that our communities need.
Our local programming from the OTA private broadcasters in Manitoba is as follows. Global runs a half-hour news show daily, which is packaged in Alberta. City TV—that's Rogers—runs Breakfast Television, a talk and news show, daily. CKY, which is CTV, runs a half-hour news show that's cycled three times a day. That's it.
If local programming is defined as local information, political coverage, and cultural reflection, we would weigh in as viewers here and say that the cuts in staff and resources mean that civic politics is pretty much left to the newspapers, and even provincial politics is not covered in any depth. Analysis, reflection, and debate have all but disappeared from the news. Given that newspapers themselves are shrinking, we fear that the essential political and social discourse of our community is not being served.
If the local programming improvement fund is going to be used to meet the needs of the local broadcasters, then we suggest that a portion of it be designated for other voices, apart from the broadcasters themselves. We also would like to state that if the fund is set at a higher percentage, any increase should not go to rebalance the BDU contributions towards the Canadian Television Fund.