London has one broadcast television station*, known as The New PL. Its title is a bit of a joke given that it's had this title - or brand, as the televisionaries like to say - for years. Its newness wore off long ago, yet the ridiculous name persists. Worse, affiliate stations in sparsely populated outposts sport the same idiotic branding, right down to the logo. Way to save money at HQ, folks.
So it comes as something of a relief that the Big Bad Owners in the Big Bad City have announced plans to rebrand their TV properties in this part of the world.
Sure, the news will still be a joke, staffed by reporters who have difficulty enunciating and wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in purgatory of succeeding in any other market. And, yes, the schedule will still be populated by Dukes of Hazzard reruns and anything with Pamela Anderson (Lee? Who cares anymore?)
Here's the announcement, pulled off of Canadian Press - Canada's real newswire service. I've taken the liberty of sharing my thoughts in embedded editorial comments. Enjoy:
Six stations in Ont., B.C. to take A-Channel name---
TORONTO — CHUM Television will rebrand six local stations in Ontario and British Columbia as A-Channels for the fall 2005 television season, officials announced today.
The company said the five southern Ontario stations slated for revamp included The New VR in Barrie, The New RO in Ottawa/Pembroke, The New PL in London, The New WI in Windsor, and Wingham's The New NX; while The New VI [can you see a pattern here? - ed.] in Victoria, B.C., would be the sole Western station included in the plan.
The stations' local mandate would remain unchanged [so we can continue to run them as cheaply as possible - ed.], officials said. However, in rebranding them as A-Channels, they would share a common name and creative elements, allowing CHUM to take full advantage of promotional opportunities [and save incredible amounts of money so we can spend more on limos and cheese for our execs in Toronto - ed.]
"Using a single brand name for the stations [has allowed us to slice six creative positions at our headquarters, opening up more budgetary flexibility for the aformentioned cheese and limos - ed.] opens tremendous national cross-promotional opportunities across our media assets [blah, blah, blah...your PR/hack instructor would be so proud that you came up with that on your own - ed.] that are unavailable when operating under six separate station names," said spokesman David Kirkwood in a release. [He forgot to mention the colors in the current cross-chain logo were starting to give the chairman migraines - ed.]
The reformatting would give the company a total of six A-Channel and five Citytv stations [and would also give viewers in all affected markets even less choice than they had before. Did anyone notice that not once are viewer benefits mentioned here? Bless the 500-channel universe!]
CHUM Television, a division of CHUM Limited (TSX: CHM.NV.B), owns and operates 33 radio stations, 12 local television stations and 21 specialty channels across Canada [and would own even more if the draconian Canadian government didn't constantly stick its fingers into Canada's cultural industries. Damn them - ed.]
-30-
* I realize Rogers Television also has its own hometown cable access channel. But it's not technically a broadcast outlet because it's cable-only. Oh yes, and the book lady weirds me out when she interviews people. So I try to avoid watching. Besides, who has time to watch television anyway?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment