SRC SALES PEOPLE PUSHING PETITION
By Adnews Staff
The television sales and marketing department for the French side of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is calling on people in the ad business to flood federal Heritage Minister Sheila Copps with petitions to keep Société Radio-Canada (SRC) a commercial network. The Juneau report calls for the CBC to stop running commercials except on sports broadcasts, and to cease receiving government subsidies. Instead it would be financed by a 7.5% tax on cable distributors, direct satellite transmission and long distance phone calls. Copps has expressed support for a tax on foreign film videos and movie theatre tickets to fund CBC. At a meeting in Toronto this month, Robert Trempe, SRC's general manager of television marketing and sales, called on the Canadian ad industry to send the petition to Copps.
Trempe's main argument is that if the Juneau report recommendations are implemented, in 1997-98 "You will have only one TV network to buy in Quebec." He contends that the TVA network would be in a monopoly position with the ability to squeeze advertisers.
TVA and the third Quebec netowrk, Television Quare Saisons, have complained for years about unfair competition from publicly-supported SRC, particularly when SRC outbids the private companies for programming using taxpayers' money. TVA does not oppose SRC selling commercial time, but the public broadcaster should not be allowed to bid for U.S. programs, says TVA spokesperson Renée-Claude Menard.
Ad agency people feel they would be unable to find other media to replace the $105-million worth of air time bought annually from SRC to reach specific target audiences. David Harrison heads an ad hoc committee of the Canadian Media Directors' Council that is formulating a response to the Juneau recommendations. Whatever specific form the response takes, the committee will definitely recommend keeping commercials on the CBC, he says.