For the first time in decades, a new television newsroom could be opening in Charlottetown.
Shaw Media is proposing to launch Global News 1, an all-news channel that focuses on local content.
If the CRTC approves the application, one of the markets Shaw Media wants to move into is Charlottetown.
“I think we’re very eager for the service to be a pan-Canadian service and we looked at a number of markets across the country, places like P.E.I. that have no competition, like the CBC,’’ Troy Reeb, senior vice-president of Global News and station operations, told The Guardian on Tuesday.
“We think it’s important that there be a diversity of voices.’’
Global proposes to go with a national feed, as is the case right now with the other 24-hour channels - CBC News Network and CTV News Channel. At the top and bottom of each hour viewers would be given local updates from P.E.I..
“Anytime there is a big event going on we can actually put that event on the channel, just for P.E.I.”
The channel would also “feel local around the clock’’, Reeb said, with information tickers and video windows featuring local content, such as community happenings and weather.
Reeb said the plan is to hire six journalists to staff a newsroom in Charlottetown. CRTC hearings on the proposal are expected to begin next spring and, if approved, the Charlottetown bureau would open in the spring of 2016.
Rick MacLean, a journalism professor at Holland College, said it’s great that it will create jobs in the local market.
“There are a lot of places that haven’t been hiring, especially the larger places, so I would take that as encouraging that they would pay more attention to this end of the country,’’ MacLean said.
At the same time, MacLean said the Island market is only so big.
“It will push everybody a bit. The other guy is trying to eat your lunch. Competition can drive what coverage is.’’
As TV ratings for Compass, CBC’s supper-hour program on P.E.I., have proven, there is a strong appetite for television news here.
Reeb said social media also shows that the need for information is constant, another reason why a 24-hour news channel needs to focus more on local content than it has in the past.
“If we don’t offer content around the clock . . . people are just going to seek that out online and people will move away from broadcasting environment to new media sources. We know we have to stay ahead of that trend.’’
The news channel would be a subscription-based service that would be most likely included on a package with providers like Eastlink, Bell TV and Shaw, which owns Global.
For the first time in decades, a new television newsroom could be opening in Charlottetown.
Shaw Media is proposing to launch Global News 1, an all-news channel that focuses on local content.
If the CRTC approves the application, one of the markets Shaw Media wants to move into is Charlottetown.
“I think we’re very eager for the service to be a pan-Canadian service and we looked at a number of markets across the country, places like P.E.I. that have no competition, like the CBC,’’ Troy Reeb, senior vice-president of Global News and station operations, told The Guardian on Tuesday.
“We think it’s important that there be a diversity of voices.’’
Global proposes to go with a national feed, as is the case right now with the other 24-hour channels - CBC News Network and CTV News Channel. At the top and bottom of each hour viewers would be given local updates from P.E.I..
“Anytime there is a big event going on we can actually put that event on the channel, just for P.E.I.”
The channel would also “feel local around the clock’’, Reeb said, with information tickers and video windows featuring local content, such as community happenings and weather.
Reeb said the plan is to hire six journalists to staff a newsroom in Charlottetown. CRTC hearings on the proposal are expected to begin next spring and, if approved, the Charlottetown bureau would open in the spring of 2016.
Rick MacLean, a journalism professor at Holland College, said it’s great that it will create jobs in the local market.
“There are a lot of places that haven’t been hiring, especially the larger places, so I would take that as encouraging that they would pay more attention to this end of the country,’’ MacLean said.
At the same time, MacLean said the Island market is only so big.
“It will push everybody a bit. The other guy is trying to eat your lunch. Competition can drive what coverage is.’’
As TV ratings for Compass, CBC’s supper-hour program on P.E.I., have proven, there is a strong appetite for television news here.
Reeb said social media also shows that the need for information is constant, another reason why a 24-hour news channel needs to focus more on local content than it has in the past.
“If we don’t offer content around the clock . . . people are just going to seek that out online and people will move away from broadcasting environment to new media sources. We know we have to stay ahead of that trend.’’
The news channel would be a subscription-based service that would be most likely included on a package with providers like Eastlink, Bell TV and Shaw, which owns Global.
