By Jim Coggins

THERE are questions about the future of faith-based television in British Columbia after the sale of JoyTV 10 to a marketing company earlier this summer.

ZoomerMedia made the offer to buy the channel, as well as some others, in June 2009. However the purchase was only approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on March 30 of this year, and the sale was finalized this summer.

There was considerable anticipation when Trinity Broadcasting founded Christian-based stations, then called NOW TV, in Surrey and southern Manitoba in 2001.

Trinity Broadcasting was led by Willard and Betty Thiessen, who already had a well established evangelical Christian program, It’s a New Day.

The target audience for the new stations was people aged 25 to 49. In keeping with CRTC regulations, the station was required to broadcast programs featuring other faiths as well as shows promoting Christianity.

Trinity Broadcasting eventually ran into financial problems, and the stations were taken over by media giant Rogers, which operated them as Omni stations, with a somewhat revised mandate. The stations were then sold in 2008 to          S-VOX, a non-profit organization which already owned two cable channels, VisionTV and One: the Body, Mind & Spirit Channel. S-VOX renamed the two former NOW stations JoyTV 10 (in Surrey) and JoyTV 11 (in Manitoba).

Ownership changed again when ZoomerMedia concluded the agreement to buy S-VOX  this summer.

The sale raises questions because ZoomerMedia is a secular, for-profit corporation which markets to people 45 and older – a far different approach from Trinity Broadcasting’s vision for the stations in 2001.

From Zoomer’s point of view, the primary asset is the Toronto-based VisionTV, a ‘multi-faith channel’ launched in 1988.

Available via cable and satellite to more than 9 million homes across Canada, it attracts 1.6 million viewers each week.

The other channel – One: the Body, Mind & Spirit Channel – offers programs on exercise, meditation, yoga, natural health and living a planet-friendly lifestyle.

Zoomer paid $25 million for S-VOX (though auxiliary costs may push the total closer to $30 million). ZoomerMedia is a conglomerate that specializes in marketing to ‘zoomers’ (baby boomers with zip).

ZoomerMedia’s holdings also include Zoomer magazine, 50PLUS.com, Zoomers.ca (a social network site), Zoomer- Singles.com (a dating site), ZoomerShows (consumer and lifestyle expos in Toronto and Vancouver), CFMZ (a classical music radio station in Toronto) and CFZM (another radio station in southern Ontario).

Marketing opportunity

None of the four TV channels has ever been very profitable, but media reports at the time of the purchase suggested ZoomerMedia’s marketing expertise may turn that around.

The target audience for all of ZoomerMedia’s efforts are the 14.5 million zoomers in Canada who have, in the words of MZ Media president George Grant, “wealth and the time to spend it.”

Grant told Broadcaster: “We’re a united and unique multi-platform organization that can offer advertisers comprehensive national marketing programs for the 45-plus.”

In other words, the ‘faith-based’ TV stations will be used to extend Zoomer’s ability to market products to people over 45.

The prime shareholder and main mover behind ZoomerMedia is Moses Znaimer. In the 1970s and 1980s, Znaimer was a high-placed executive with CityTV in Toronto (home of ‘baby blue’ movies) and the CHUM media conglomerate.

In this position, he helped launch a string of cable TV channels, including MuchMusic, Bravo!, Space, CablePulse 24, Canadian Learning Television, Star!, Drive-In Classics, FashionTelevision Channel, BookTelevision, CourtTV Canada, SexTV: The Channel, MuchLOUD and MuchVibe.

Znaimer’s style is characterized on Wikipedia as favouring a “local, hip and casual format aimed at young audiences.”

With ZoomerMedia, Znaimer is continuing to appeal to the same boomer generation, except that both he and the boomer generation have gotten a lot older. Znaimer has a Jewish background – but has never been known for any specific religious attachments.

 Gerry Bowler, a historian at the University of Manitoba specializing in “the intersection of religion and popular culture,” said Znaimer has been successful by encouraging programming that was “the edgiest of edgy.”

“There’s a lot of money to be made in marketing to boomers,” Bowler suggested, and the purchase gives the impression that “faith is a product” to be bought and sold.

Faith-based content

 While Zoomer may see the channels as primarily a marketing vehicle, that does not mean the content of the stations will change. Mark Prasuhn formerly worked for S-VOX and is now chief operating officer and content officer of ZoomerMedia’s television division.

He told BCCN the programs on the stations will continue “largely as they have been” and that “the faith aspect [will] remain a strong part” of the programming.

In fact, Prasuhn said, Zoomer has plans “to market the faith-based programs more aggressively,” which could produce “very exciting results.”

VisionTV and JoyTV have religious licenses from the CRTC, and Zoomer has assured the CRTC that it will abide by those licenses. In approving the sale of S-VOX, the CRTC considered whether a for-profit company could operate faith-based channels and concluded that ownership does not matter as long as the stations retain the programming mandate.

Prasuhn also suggested that influence could flow the other way, with a religious component being added to Zoomer’s other marketing platforms.

Continue article >>

For instance, Zoomer has added a ‘faith pavilion’ at its ZoomerShow in Toronto and to its new edition of the ZoomerShow in Vancouver (November 27 – 28), where faith-based agencies can promote their ministries and services.

However, not everything is going to remain the same.

Jonathon Roth, executive producer of content for JoyTV in Vancouver, told BCCN that the entire production department at the B.C. station (including Roth) has been let go.

The changes include cancellation of the news interview program The Standard and another program, P3. 

Ironically, Peter Klein, host of The Standard, has been nominated this year for an Emmy for a documentary called Over a Barrel: The Truth about Oil, which was broadcast on 20/20 in the U.S. and on The Standard in Canada.

Prasuhn acknowledged that the two programs had not been renewed at the end of their run, but said JoyTV “will continue to carry locally produced programming.”

He said B.C.’s South Asian community in particular has stepped up to fill the gap with new locally produced programming.

Older demographic

Underlying the purchase of the faith-based channels by Zoomer is the assumption that they appeal to the same 45-plus market that Zoomer focuses on.

If this assumption is true, it calls into question the long-term prospects for faith-based programming.

Tore Stautland is a contractor in charge of procuring paid Christian programs for TV channels and also encouraging participation in the faith pavilions at ZoomerShows.

He told BCCN, “Nobody is projecting that demographic onto those channels. If you look at the ratings for any faith channel, you will see that they appeal mainly to people 50 and over.

Roth agreed that Vision TV in particular appeals to an older demographic, but said the same is true for shows such as The Standard and also for American shows such as 20/20 and 60 Minutes and even newscasts on most channels.

He noted that camera shots are cut at least every three seconds on youth-oriented channels such as MuchMusic. The result is that “the younger generation don’t have the attention span to listen to a sermon.”

Similarly, he said, “the long-format interview (such as the half-hour interviews on The Standard) is dying.”

It could even be argued that television, once the epitome of modern technology, is now becoming a domain of the older generation.

Surveys show young people spend more time surfing the internet than watching television.

Furthermore, Roth observed, “the idea of religion is onerous to young people.”

He was at a recent focus group to gather input from young people and when the issue of religion was mentioned, they lost interest in the discussion.

The result, Roth said, is that it is very difficult for faith-based television to succeed in Canada, especially when even some local secular stations are shutting down.

“We are fishing in such a small sea,” Roth said, adding that committed Christians may be only 10 percent of the population and Christian broadcasters can’t even count on that segment – “Just because you are a Christian, it doesn’t mean that you will watch Christian TV.”

Furthermore, Roth said the whole idea of religious television has inherent difficulties. The biggest lesson he has learned, Roth said, is that the medium is the message: “Television is an entertainment medium, and religion is not entertainment.”

The CRTC regulations don’t help either, Roth suggested.

Religious stations are not commercially viable, but the CRTC regulations that stations must be multifaith rather than Christian mean that Christians won’t make donations to them either – they don’t work as businesses, and they aren’t allowed to function as ministries.

Prasuhn agrees that the CRTC requirements for JoyTV are “the most challenging and lengthy of any channel in the country” and that Zoomer may seek some modifications when the license comes up for renewal in a year or two.

However, he is much less pessimistic about the future of faith-based programming.

He said it is true that only 20 – 30 percent of Canadians are active members of organized religions, but added there is also a large percentage who are inactive but still affiliated with a religion.

And even those who are disconnected from religion often have an interest in spirituality.

He noted that VisionTV in particular is already broad in its approach. It has, and will continue to have, programming produced by specific religious communities, including all the major religions.

However, he said, it also has programming that touches on moral and spiritual issues without being faith specific. “We’re not pushing one point of view.”

Prasuhn suspects that as the Canadian religious reality changes, Zoomer television will continue to adapt to its audience. Noting that VisionTV is available to most English-speaking Canadians, he said the opportunity and challenge is there for VisionTV to be relevant.

He added that it is possible since in the last four years VisionTV’s prime time audience has tripled and its overall audience has doubled.

He added that programs such as It’s a New Day still draw loyal audiences, and “a compelling interview can still be good television.”

He said that while it often takes a different approach to programming to attract a younger generation, “what will transcend different platforms is a good story.”

Prasuhn is not worried about holding an audience. He said the zoomer demographic is “the part of the population that is growing, and that will be the case for many years to come.”

October 2010