Twinstick

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A twinstick, in Canadian broadcasting, is a term for two television stations, broadcasting in the same market, which are owned by the same company. The term derives from the use of "stick", in broadcasting industry jargon, as a term for a broadcast transmitter tower.

Twinsticks are permitted in two very different market types: either the market must be too small to support two separate commercial broadcasters competing for advertising dollars, or the market must be large enough that a diversity of broadcast voices already exists.

In the United States, a broadcast operation of this type is more commonly known as a duopoly.

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[edit] History

Twinsticks were first allowed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in 1967, as a way to help expand CTV service to smaller markets. In the original twinstick model, the second station was a rebroadcaster of a CTV station in a larger market, to which the small market's existing CBC affiliate would be granted the advertising sales rights.

As the company's advertising revenue grew, the CTV transmitter would eventually become an originating station in its own right, and in theory would eventually be sold to another broadcaster. However, in many cases the subsequent sale never happened, as the community's economic growth failed to lend itself to competition between multiple television broadcasters. In other markets where the CRTC had licensed competing broadcasters, such as Northern Ontario, twinstick mergers were subsequently allowed to permit the survival of both television stations after similar economic difficulties were encountered.

With the cross-national consolidation of media ownership, many of the original twinstick stations are no longer in operation. However, the second type of twinstick, involving media convergence in larger markets, began to arise in the 1990s.

[edit] Small markets

Outside of Quebec, twinsticks of this type always involve CTV and CBC stations. (Global sometimes owns originating stations that broadcast in the same market as rebroadcasters of Global-owned stations from other markets, although this is not considered a true twinstick.)

Within Quebec, twinsticks may consist of any combination of SRC, TVA and TQS stations, although SRC-TQS is the most common combination as TVA has the highest degree of direct ownership of its affiliates.

One "triple stick" also exists, in which a single company, Télé Inter-Rives, operates all three licensed stations in Rivière-du-Loup: CKRT, CIMT and CFTF. An unofficial triple stick also exists in the Rouyn-Noranda area, as Radio-Nord, the licensed owner of that city's twinstick, also operates CFVS, the sole station licensed to the nearby city of Val-d'Or.

From 1997 to 2002, CTV directly owned several CBC twinstick stations it had inherited from Baton Broadcasting in 1997 (CKNC, CHNB, CJIC and CFCL in Northern Ontario, which were part of the MCTV system, and CKBI and CKOS in Saskatchewan), but these were sold to the CBC in 2002. CTV no longer owns any stations that are affiliated with other networks.

[edit] Major markets

In the mid-1990s, the CRTC also began to allow companies operating in large markets to acquire smaller stations. In all such cases, the twinsticks are permitted because a diversity of broadcast voices already exists in the market, and the stations are normally licensed to serve different communities in the metropolitan market or different programming niches. The stations must also be operated independently of each other, although they are permitted to cross-promote each other's programming and may air a very limited amount of common programming.

The two companies that currently own multiple major market twinsticks operate each pair of stations under different branding: CHUM Limited uses the Citytv, A-Channel and ACCESS brands, while Canwest Global uses the Global and CH identities. Rogers Communications owns a twinstick in which both stations use the OMNI Television brand.

Additionally, in Calgary and Edmonton, CanWest owns CICT and CITV (respectively) as well as Red Deer's CHCA, which is available on cable in both markets. This is not considered a true twinstick as CHCA is neither based, nor has simultaneous substitution rights, in the two larger markets.

Unlike the situation in smaller markets, this type of "consolidation" twinstick is becoming more common.

[edit] See Also

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