While more than 200 community radio stations survived Canada's digital transition, cable community TV has not, as Mr. Manly and Ms. McPherson queried. Cable ownership and technical consolidation have led to the closure of the majority of the 300 former cable studios that launched the careers of a whole generation of Canadian talent—people like Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers and Guy Maddin.
In 2016, as Mr. Scott acknowledged, the CRTC gave cable companies the green light to redirect most of Canada's $150-million community TV budget from their few remaining corporately branded stations—Rogers TV, Shaw TV and TV Cogeco—to their failing news properties. CACTUS members are trying to fill this gap, but despite our cost efficiency, it still takes seed funding for infrastructure and leadership to reach news deserts. The communities that need community media the most tend to have the least capacity to fund them.