Television networks are abandoning your city
By Lethbridge Herald on September 6, 2024.
LEAVE IT TO BEEBER
Al Beeber – managing editor
The media landscape has changed globally, nationally and locally as we’ve all seen and read as traditional news organizations struggle to generate advertising revenue to pay journalists’ salaries and company operating expenses.
After all, running a media outlet isn’t cheap and as revenues decline and inflation along with taxes increase, media organizations have been hit hard.
I’ve written about that extensively here, including just a couple of weeks ago. And we’re going to examine that a bit more here.
And unfortunately, I’m going to turn the lens here to other media operations in Lethbridge, specifically television.
If you still subscribe to cable, and increasingly Canadians are cutting the cord and going to streaming services, you will notice neither Global nor CTV do a local newscast in Lethbridge anymore.
Global recently cut their nightly newscast, amalgamating Lethbridge stories into their Calgary operations. When I saw that I feared the worst for their anchor Sarah Jones, who I’ve covered numerous stories with and was glad to see that this young local talent still has a job with the company – in Regina.
Anyone in local media who knows Sarah will surely agree she’s one of the good people in this business and Regina’s gain is definitely Lethbridge’s loss.
But also a loss is the Global presence in Lethbridge. When a television network decides a market like Lethbridge with a population of 106,000, not counting the rural area, isn’t worth maintaining a presence, what does that say about this community?
It says Lethbridge and area don’t matter. So why would any advertiser feel compelled to invest dollars into a company which has cut staff and is now paying lip service to the city?
Where are those local advertising dollars going? Do you really think they’re staying in Lethbridge? Your so-called local Global news is being read to you from Calgary.
CTV, of course, also doesn’t have a local newscast here, it’s departure coming well before that of Global.
If you watched the local nightly news on Labour Day Monday, you’d see that neither station covered the CUPE Waging Ahead rally at City Hall or the Lethbridge & District Labour Council barbecue at Galt Gardens after rally attendees marched there.
Oh wait, there was no local newscast on Monday.
On any station. So you couldn’t have seen that story or even one on the Paws in the Pool fundraiser for the Lethbridge and District Humane Society at Westminster Pool on Sunday.
You also didn’t see those stories on Global or CTV’s websites because they didn’t cover them.
But residents – and local advertisers – would have seen those stories in the Lethbridge Herald and on website because we did cover those events! We actually worked on Monday. Two big events that no other media were at except for your local newspaper. Speaks volumes about priorities, doesn’t it?
We care, regardless of our staffing issues, we care enough to cover the stories that matter to Lethbridge. We try our best to provide that coverage with a newsroom far diminished in size from its heyday decades ago.
We haven’t given up on Lethbridge as TV seems to have done, TV which safe to say is paying lip service to residents and businesses alike, the latter except when they want your money.
Shopping local in the case of advertising with CTV and Global means supporting people in other locations, sort of like advertising with Facebook and Google do.
While we are certainly struggling to get those local advertising dollars, who still has a strong local presence in downtown or Lethbridge period? Not Global and CTV obviously. Our company is still contributing to the local economy in more than just a superficial way. We’re not pretending to be a local news outlet – we are one.
That’s something local businesses need to consider. Where do you want your local advertising dollars to go? Here, Calgary, Toronto? Where?
Global and CTV are abandoning Lethbridge. Pure and simple. We aren’t. We’re staying here. We’re not printing our newspaper elsewhere, we’re not giving up the ghost, we’re fighting to survive to provide Lethbridge and area quality journalism. The TV networks aren’t, they’re paying lip service to southern Alberta.
And don’t even get me started about our so-called national network, the CBC.
Advertisers, community organizations and sports groups need to think about that. We are staying.
Why give TV the time of day when their ownership is abandoning ship?
We are still navigating troubled waters, staying afloat as best we can to keep you informed as best we can. From Lethbridge!
28-27
Global is trading today at 13 cents a share down from a high of over 6.00 in the past. This is about survival and not Lethbridge. The Herald is left to do what it does with what it has. They do the best they can.
Further last nights CTV NEWS FROM Calgary was pre emted for an NFL game between Baltimore and Kansas City. Looks like CTV was going for ratings hoping Taylor Swift would appear.
here is one of those issues we easily agree upon. well stated.
it seems to me the more screen time a society buys into, the more it gets bent by the great corporate system. on the one hand we give away too much of our limited time on planet earth watching others play out their lives and dreams, buying into the lifestyles of the rich and famous mentality; on the other hand, we watch “news”, ever the more contrived, shaped, diluted, perverted, limited, superficial, and alarmist. mcluhan and leary were well ahead of the curve, it seems.
That will happen every Thursday until Christmas.
This is a catch 22 ! If you don’t get advertising you slowly die. If you do not report the news that everyone knows is going around them, you die.
So Mr Beeber, I ask you a simple question because this article was really not about TV at all, its all about the LethbridgeHerals and “woah is me”!
Why haven’t you and staff reported any OD deaths in Lethbridge, period! Is it because its not happening in Lethbridge at all and its a figment of our imaginations?
Why haven’t you reported on the fiasco of people amassing around the shelter waiting for those 100 extra beds?
Your paper is directly responsible for the lack of concern going on before your very eyes! If its not reported its not happening, right?
If this city is so “compassionate” that they really wished to help addicts, then your paper would have a counter on the front page with the rolling number of addicts dieing on Lethbridge streets daily. Each death should be investigated and the spotlight shone on what is happening to the Indigenous of this community.
I have had numerous “complaints” about how we do things in this community and one of them is Your, and Local News Reporting. You no doubt think I am a one issue person. You would be right! Now, if we could just get 30 mor,e one issue people involved with this community, backed up by the local MEDIA, we may get somewhere.
It is rather ironic and also very telling that the last time I read an article about Addicts destroying anything in this city was the Lethbridge Herald complaining about their own building being attacked!
You have chosen only to report “happy thoughts” instead of reporting the fiasco that unfolds literally every night with first responders, the Hospital and events on the street.
Mr Ewing has videos of knife fights gang destruction, ambulances rushing people toospital after being knifed, but narry a word out of the Lethbridge Herald, so do you really expect people to buy your paper when the greatest concern the downtown and suburbs have is not reported?
The LethbridgeHerald will collapse and it will blame everyone but themselves when they do. Do something different, start reporting what is happening daily in our city and you may get the community and advertisers behind you, again!
Until then, if you treat the anxiety of residents as a sidebar that is never reported, or as LAPS has stated, if breakin damage is less than $10,000 its not worthy of an officers time, and its not worth reporting in the Herald, why should a business ever and I mean EVER advertise with you?
Start reporting what is happening daily to potential advertisers and show you support them and you maybe surprised how quickly you can turn things around. Keep reporting the incidentals of society and you dig your own grave.
If you start reporting damage that is happening to this city, then suddenly, advertisers see you supporting them, advertise. LAPS is suddenly more embarrassed because now everything is reported, so they stepup to try to fix it. Council suddenly can no longer do the “be happy” thing and pretend it does not exist and suddenly you become the goto place for Lethbridge news….how novel!
You said: We care, regardless of our staffing issues, we care enough to cover the stories that matter to Lethbridge
Do you? Oh ya, this was about CTV , my bad!
I leave you with one thought!
How is it that “savin one life” is worth destroying a downtown and its society, yet its not wotth reporting when it’s lost, or, a business barely making ends meet, sustains $9,000 in damage is not worthy either? I await your amazing answer to that one!
Yes, a roll around death counter by OD would certainly get some attention and quite possibly some subscriptions.
Interesting on the less than 10 K damage/theft, non attendance by the police. I was stunned to learn the following:
Residentially, if the theft is under 10k and is from an unattached garage or vehicle there is no police attendance.
If the damage/theft is under 10k from an “attached” garage police will attend.
Further, if you’re out for a walk with Fido, and not in an off leash area, letting Fido run wild (very common) and Fido gets a load off his mind, and some busy body with a camera, snaps your picture, then waits till you get back in your vehicle, snaps a pic of your plate, reports it to the police/bylaw, guess what happens? You have two uniforms show up at your door and get a ticket. Happened in Lethbridge, same person, victim of a major theft, crickets, and offender for having Fido off leash, here’s your ticket. Should have fought it and exposed the “stool pigeon”.
I’m guessing the average Herald reader doesn’t care how many OD’s happen. Would more people subscribe? I doubt it.
You’d support a local OD tracker – sponsored by “company XYZ” ??
The BIG question should be what will happen in January once Al Beeber has retired?
Its a little more than that knowlton. If we started reporting all the ODs, the number of calls Emerg/First responders attend per week. If we then gathered statistics from the Hospital and printed it for everyone to see, then perhaps they would suddenly realize why we are in this predicament. Remember, this “Southern Alberta Rehab Facility”, renamed “Community Care Campus”, renamed “Resource Center” is permanent, it is here, in our downtown,………………. forever! Much like “Harm Reduction” achieves nothing of value, neither will this center other than to attract every addict south of Calgary to Lethbridge!