Local TV stations want you to force cable networks to bill you more for their service because ad revenues are no longer sufficient. Make no mistake — this’ll pass through to people who still pay for TV. Casting the battle as populist, “let’s regulate cable bills”, seems disingenuous. The newspaper disease has mutated and jumped media, this is the first symptom of an epidemic of disintegrating television viewership.

This is just nonsense democratic corporatism: They should move online where all the ad dollars are, then re-negotiate their contracts. People are beginning to stop watching television, period. Local television doubly so. I’d be tempted to watch a Victoria news vlog every single day, CHEK 6 not so much.

When it comes to corporations I take a “tough shit” approach to market failures, but this is borderline because in theory — in theory — more spending on A/V production is good for people like me. In practice local television would probably be funded a lot like public art: Dollars won for blandness, not stretching the boundaries of culture. You’re not going to get any gritty dramas about drug addicted natives living on the streets of Victoria, you’re going to get more “local dog wins regional dog show” bulletins.