The new stringency surrounding media buys has resulted in a radical decline in conventional departmental advertising. It is somewhat strange to see that, out of a total budget of $71 million, only $33 million were spent. That is clearly indicative of the fact that the current accountability process is overly lengthy and burdensome. It discourages departments and agencies from advertising. They instead instigate alternative initiatives, because, as I am sure you would agree, it is fairly rare for budgets not to be spent in government.
As far less money is being spent, there has been an overall reduction in media buys. Coupled with this decline, is the fact that we are a small group with only 20 stations outside of Quebec. As a result, we do not have access to BBM ratings, and advertising planning agencies do not know who we are, we are not on their radar screen. This means that they do not automatically include us in their advertising campaigns.
That is why we believe that the guide, although on the right track and entirely laudable, has made no impact thus far. If an advertising campaign is run on television, equivalency cannot be attained even if the ads are also run in newspapers and minority language community radio stations.
We would therefore ask that the guide be adhered to for each and every advertising campaign.