Big Media Gobbles More Than We Want to Chew

Two major broadcast purchases were announced on the back pages of the business section today.

Rogers has bought 5 TV stations in the CityTV chain, and Astral Media has acquired 53 radio stations (including Vancouver's CISL 650 AM and 95Crave FM) and two TV properties.

To me, this is very big news. And it is bad news.

Both Rogers and Astral are required by the useless, redundant CRTC to spend many millions over the next few years on "tangible benefits, such as the creation of local programming."

There are only two questions to ask of the members of the CTC Board:

What medicines are you on?

Or, From what Jurassic Park have you wandered?

"Local Programming" is almost non-existent in Canadian (and American) Narrowcasting today.

Channel 6 in Victoria is now E!, a weltshmerts of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton updates 24/7.

Thank god for Keifer Sutherland and his DUI - some Canadian content!

CityTV in Vancouver, having fired dozens of good news people, now has a 30-second news hit every so often throughout the evening, read by an almost illiterate young man.

The "convergence" of TV and newsprint under the Canwest Global banner has been, no doubt, a boon for the corporation in terms of economies of scale. But, for the Canadian public, to whom the CRTC theoretically owes some allegiance, this is a disaster.

Not only do we have to suffer the constant cross-promotion of one medium to the other for mediocre work, but we are limited to the sound of one hand clapping. One voice, one editorial stance, one version of the truth.

I am not saying that this is an evil plot. It is simply human nature to ride with the herd and echo the elk next to you.

The one good news is this otherwise moribund landscape is that so many people have sheered through the transparency of Big Media that millions now turn to small presses and the Internet to get alternate voices and faces and opinions and sounds.