Town CAO Norm McInnis is proposing to fund Central Alberta TV to the tune of $20,000 for 2012 through the CAO office operating budget.
“What we are discussing is that instead of doing a traditional sponsorship or advertising piece where we pay for each piece of what we want, let's commit to a budget amount of $20,000 and we will work with them over the 12 months of this fiscal period to use up that money,” he said.
“Central Alberta TV just wants some surety that if they go out and buy equipment or invest in staffing, that there is some certainty in our commitment to them.”
McInnis said once the Fibre To The Premise project is up and running, Central Alberta TV will have the ability to play a significant role in providing local content. The service will link every household and business in Olds to Alberta's SuperNet through fibre optics and enable customers to subscribe to services such as cable, Internet, and telephone.
“The discussion that we have had with Central Alberta TV is if they can have some stable funding to basically make sure that they can employ a cameraman to do local programming, that they will do as much as they can,” said McInnis.
While Coun. Wade Bearchell agreed in supporting Central Alberta TV, he reminded council that it was a private company.
“It is a business, like anything else. They are not doing it for nothing, I am assuming,” he said.
“They are not entirely a benevolent non-profit organization that we are going to be providing funds to operate.”
