Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!ubc-cs!faculty.cs.ubc.ca!manis
From: manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canadian commercials on US radio and tv stations
Message-ID: <2360@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jun 89 14:48:23 GMT
References: <89Jun19.002358edt.11715@neat.ai.toronto.edu> <2342@uwovax.uwo.ca> <1989Jun21.200421.9494@mdivax1.uucp> <2365@uwovax.uwo.ca> <422@moegate.UUCP> <155@van-bc.UUCP>
Sender: news@cs.ubc.ca
Reply-To: manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis)
Organization: The Invisible City of Kitezh
Lines: 34

In article <155@van-bc.UUCP> sl@.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>On KCTS from Bellingham it's almost rare to see add's that *ARE NOT*
>directed to Canadian viewers.
>
>KCTS runs old syndicated shows, lost of movies etc. 

Oops! Stuart gives the call letters wrong. He's speaking of KVOS-12
(KCTS-9 is the Seattle PBS affiliate). KVOS is also the only
commercial station in North America running `Doctor Who' (KCTS is one
of the few PBS stations which refuses to run it, on the grounds that
the program director doesn't like it. But that's another newsgroup). 

KVOS maintains offices in both Bellingham and Vancouver, and in many
ways acts as a Canadian station. On the other hand, it is not
regulated by the CRTC, but by the FCC. Its responsibilities about
content are American ones, rather than Canadian. Although it was once
a CBS affiliate in Bellingham (back when there wasn't much in the way
of cable, so KIRO-7 Seattle wasn't the competition) it has long since
targeted its audience in the Lower Mainland. If that audience did not
exist, KVOS would have a much harder row to hoe. 

I violently object to any form of censorship (which is how such things
as tax advantages are sometimes presented). Still, encouraging
Canadian advertisers to use Canadian media strikes me as a reasonable
response to the fact that the FCC's regulation is quite a bit looser
(if that can be imagined) than the CRTC's. 
____________  Vincent Manis                    | manis@cs.ubc.ca
___ \  _____  The Invisible City of Kitezh     | manis@cs.ubc.cdn
____ \  ____  Department of Computer Science   | manis%cs.ubc@relay.cs.net
___  /\  ___  University of British Columbia   | uunet!ubc-cs!manis
__  /  \  __  Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5    | (604) 228-2394
_  / __ \  _  "There is no law that vulgarity and literary excellence cannot
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