Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TAG TV


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. The primary argument to keep simply does not appear to be based in Wikipedia policies regarding sourcing and notability. Consensus otherwise seems to support the nominator's suggestion that this fails the relevant notability guidelines. ~ mazca  talk 15:02, 21 January 2020 (UTC) ~  mazca  talk 15:02, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

TAG TV

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Article about an online-only "television" channel, referenced only to its own self-published website rather than any evidence of reliable source coverage in unaffiliated media outlets. As always, the bar for getting into Wikipedia is not simply the fact that its own self-created web presence metaverifies its existence -- the notability test is the ability to show that it has been the subject of actual journalism, in unaffiliated media outlets, at a volume and depth and geographic range that are sufficient to get it over WP:GNG and WP:CORPDEPTH. Bearcat (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete not notable, fails WP:GNG. WP:PROMOTION Wm335td (talk) 19:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep It is not online only, it is on Cable and IP Boxes. The channel is in association with channels such as BBC, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera etc. It also uses non original research sources such as ANI News etc. Over 50 million daily viewership on all platforms, would definitely consider it notable.

http://www.tagtv.info/tv-guide-audience-reach/

I've provided a second link below which has their daily news bulletins. Clearly shows they use multiple unaffiliated and reliable sources.

http://www.tagtv.info/category/news/ Hindian1947 (talk) 06:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * The notability test is not whether they do or don't use reliable sources in their work, it is whether they are or aren't the subject of reliable source coverage about them in other media outlets. And I cannot find any evidence that they are distributed by any cable company in Canada, or indeed even that they have a license from the CRTC to operate in that manner in the first place — so you can't just say they're a cable channel and drop the mic, you have to show reliable source coverage, with TAG TV as the subject and not the creator, which verifies that the claim is true. Again, the notability test is not "it has its own self-published website to verify that it exists" — the notability test is "other media outlets have produced content about it". Bearcat (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Someone said above that TAG TV didn't use original sources. I told him they do. The channel is affiliated with companies such as BBC, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera. Listed on multiple IP boxes/IPTV. I've updated the Wikipedia page with multiple sources and information, hope you take a look. The channel is definitely notable. Over 50 million daily viewership, 170k+ subscribers on youtube etc. The sources and information I have added to the article have talked about and expanded on the notability. For example, the mayor of mississauga visiting the TAG TV staff, non related sources mentioning and discussing TAG TV. Hindian1947 (talk) 06:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * You're not getting it: the comment above is not incorrect, you're misunderstanding what it's about and what we're looking for. The notability test for a media outlet is not what other media outlets it is affiliated with — the notability test for a media outlet is not the extent to which the company has been the creator of coverage about other things, it is the extent to which the company has been the subject of reliable source coverage about the company in other media outlets. Notability is not established by what a company claims about itself, notability is not established by the number of subscribers it has on YouTube, notability is not established by getting an office visit from the mayor of the city — and the list of things you can use as "notability-supporting" sources does not include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Roku, the channel's own self-published website about itself, anything that's a press release from any company's internal PR department, WordPress blogs, user-generated content on Medium.com, the Yellow Pages, or sources which briefly mention TAG TV's existence in the process of not being about TAG TV. What you have to show to establish notability is sources which represent other media outlets doing journalism about TAG TV as a subject, and exactly zero of your new sources are that kind. Bearcat (talk) 06:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * No, not exactly 0 are about that. Stop cherrypicking linkedin and the primary sources, look at the ones made by non affiliated sources. Linkedin sources have a specific purpose, a very narrow one. 50 million plus daily viewership is very notable i mentioned subscribers as it's a very easy way to gage notability. Also i have given sources in the articles that are other media outlets doing journalism about TAG TV as a subject why are you not mentioning them. Hindian1947 (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, exactly zero are that kind. LinkedIn pages may verify facts, but are not evidence of notability. To support notability, a source has to represent journalism, being done by a media outlet, with the topic in question as its subject — a company's own self-published claims about itself are not evidence of notability. Anybody can claim to have 50 million viewers — so the number of viewers that the company claims in its own self-published marketing materials counts for nothing toward notability until it's independently verified by a reliable source independent of the company's own self-published marketing materials. The notability test, again, is not what the company claims about itself — companies can and do lie about things like the number of viewers they have, so translating viewership into notability requires journalism to be done about the company in other media outlets besides itself, independently reverifying that the things it claims about itself are actually true. Bearcat (talk) 07:53, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

On the CRTC, it is likely it they are exempt, so that it could potentially be an unfair allegation. https://applications.crtc.gc.ca/radio-tv-cable/eng/broadcasting-services-List?_ga=2.63587436.2121226200.1578272422-895540273.1578272422 Hindian1947 (talk) 01:06, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, so guess what? One of our core criteria for the notability of a broadcast media outlet is the holding of a broadcast license — "license-exempt" services are not "inherently" notable at all. You just cut off your own legs. Congratulations. Bearcat (talk) 06:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * If you're exempt, you don't NEED a license. You still broadcast and it has no bearing on notability. Did you even read the link i sent or are you only trying to win an argument. No need to be patronising.Hindian1947 (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Our notability standards for broadcast media operations do require a license. "Exempt" services are not entitled to have articles on here in the absence of really solid media coverage, precisely because the lack of a CRTC license means they also lack the CRTC sourcing that helps to support the notability of a real licensed radio or TV station. Whether it's allowed to operate without a broadcasting license is not the point — it isn't allowed to have a Wikipedia article without a broadcasting license, because having a broadcasting license is one of our core criteria for broadcast media being notable enough for inclusion here. Bearcat (talk) 07:53, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   06:56, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Doug Mehus T · C  02:30, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You might want to reread my comments if you think "keep per me" is a thing. Television and radio stations have to have CRTC licenses to be handed a presumption of notability; unlicensed stations are allowed to have articles only if they can be referenced well enough to clear WP:CORPDEPTH, and there can be no special exceptions to that rule. Bearcat (talk) 03:30, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , No no I got that, that they need a CRTC license - I don't dispute that as you told me that when an unlicensed CKOO-FM had slipped through the cracks, but do they also need to have multiple reliable, independent sources which cover the station in a significant way? Doug Mehus T · C  03:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * They do, but the CRTC license itself counts as valid notability-supporting sourcing — which means that there's never any such thing as a CRTC-licensed station that's unsourceable. But again, the core point is that I argued delete, so there's no such thing as "keep per Bearcat" here. Bearcat (talk) 03:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , Okay, I wouldn't have thought CRTC decisions would be independent sources as typically government listings (i.e., Elections Canada) count as primary sources, right? But we do need at least two, and ideally three, reliable sources, so are you saying that, potentially, there's some valid CRTC licensees (radio and/or TV) which fail WP:GNG despite having been issued a license? To your latter point, you did say, "Keep It is not online only, it is on Cable and IP Boxes. The channel is in association with channels such as BBC, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera etc. It also uses non original research sources such as ANI News etc. Over 50 million daily viewership on all platforms, would definitely consider it notable[,]" no? That's why I said "keep per Bearcat." Doug Mehus T · C  03:47, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I see you were the nominator. Geez, how did I miss that? But who is the "keep" !vote? Geez, I hate it when extendedconfirmed users forget to sign their comments/posts, which is why I opted in to SineBot. Doug Mehus T · C  03:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * CRTC-licensed stations should ideally have additional sources beyond just the CRTC docments alone, but the license documents themselves do count as notability-assisting sources — in part because they're essential to properly verifying that the station even meets the licensing condition in the first place, but also because they're the only possible source for some of the information that a broadcast station's article needs to contain (e.g. the ERP and HAAT statistics of the transmitter). They don't permanently clinch the station's notability all by themselves if other sources turn out to be well and truly non-existent — for example, a station that had a license but then failed for whatever reason to ever actually get onto the air at all before that license expired, such as the Old CKOO example you alluded to, does not get to keep an article in defiance of the "established broadcast history" and "original programming" criteria just because it technically had a license it never actually used. But what the license documents do accomplish is shifting the burden of proof: if you can prove that the station has a CRTC license, then you need to prove that the station really, truly doesn't have any other sources before you can get it deleted.
 * But for unlicensed operations like this one, it's the opposite: precisely because there isn't a CRTC license to assist in sourcing the article over the notability hump, the people who want it to be in Wikipedia have the burden of showing that the correct kind of reliable sourcing does exist to get the station over WP:GNG and WP:CORPDEPTH.
 * To summarize, CRTC-licensed radio and television stations are presumed notable until shown otherwise, so the burden of proof is on the "show that other sources absolutely don't exist before you can get it deleted" side of the equation — but unlicensed/exempt stations are presumed not notable until shown otherwise, and the burden of proof is on the "show that notability-securing sources do exist before you can get it created" side. This one is in the unlicensed/exempt class, however, and the sources that have been shown are not notability-securing ones. Bearcat (talk) 16:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , Thanks for that very helpful summary on our notability tests for licensed/unlicensed stations, but in this case, Tag TV is a licensed station. So, if I've "heard" you correctly, as the nominator, it's incumbent upon you to show us that this station fails both WP:GNG and WP:CORPDEPTH. Correct? Based on my preliminary review of the sources, WP:GNG may be met here, by virtue of the CRTC licensing documents and/or one or more sources; however, WP:CORPDEPTH may well not be. Is that a fair assessment? Doug Mehus T · C  16:16, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't a licensed station. Even Hindian1947, in his keep arguments, plainly admitted and demonstrated that it's listed as a license-exempt operation. There aren't any CRTC licensing documents being shown here at all, because there aren't any to show — the only CRTC "source" that's been brought to bear is its presence in the CRTC's list of exempt broadcasters that don't need licenses to operate. Bearcat (talk) 16:18, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , Oh, I wasn't aware that we could have Canadian-based specialty cable television stations that didn't require a CRTC license. Interesting.
 * Still, I'm wondering about BuyNOW TV...a former, CRTC-licensed station but one which generated no press coverage whatsoever and nothing which would meet our WP:SIGCOV and WP:CORPDEPTH guidelines. There is one book, which is about a company which invested in BuyNOW TV but which is not about BuyNOW TV. The rest of the Google web search results are all directory listings, passing mentions, and copies of the Wikipedia page. Seems like a pretty clear WP:CORPDEPTH fail, eh? Doug Mehus T · C  16:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that this is actually a "cable television station" at all — I can't actually find any verifiable evidence that even one cable company in all of Canada actually carries it at all. That's claimed in the article but not adequately referenced as being true, and the only source that's actually been shown to verify anything about its distribution is an entry in a Roku app directory. One of our problems has always been that people have created hoax articles about radio or television stations that didn't actually exist at all, and/or overinflated the notability of streaming services by inaccurately claiming that they were real television or radio broadcasters — so the notability test isn't the fact that the article says the topic has cable distribution, but the quality of the sources that can be shown to verify that the claim is true.
 * But also, now that we're deep into the digital cable era, the CRTC did reorganize its licensing criteria a few years ago, and did indeed reclassify cable services as exempt from licensing if they (a) have fewer than 200,000 subscribers nationwide, and/or (b) broadcast 90 per cent or more of their content in a foreign language (i.e. not English, French or an indigenous language.) You can see Category B services if you need more information about this.
 * BuyNow TV may also be problematic, but I'll have to look into it a bit more before I can make a judgement either way — and, of course, it can also be listed for deletion if it actually fails the test. Bearcat (talk) 16:55, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * BuyNow TV may also be problematic, but I'll have to look into it a bit more before I can make a judgement either way — and, of course, it can also be listed for deletion if it actually fails the test. Bearcat (talk) 16:55, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment to, can you please add your signature to your "keep" !vote above? It's confusing me, and potentially, others as well, as I thought that was 's !vote. Doug Mehus T · C  03:53, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per discussion with above. CRTC-licensed station fails WP:CORPDEPTH and likely WP:GNG as well. Doug Mehus  T · C  16:47, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.