MONTREAL – Like every other conventional television broadcaster in English Canada, Quebec’s Télévision Quatre-Saisons (TQS) had argued for the CRTC’s acceptance of carriage fees to help OTAs compete with fee-supported speciality channels.
“We’re very disappointed,” said TQS President & CEO René Guimond, after the CRTC rejected the idea Thursday. “For us, it’s the continuation of the old model, a model in need of adjustments.”
“I thought we had made the clear demonstration that there is inequity between conventional broadcasters and the speciality channels. And the reason number one for the inequity is the issue of [subscriber] fees,” Guimond told Cartt.ca.
In its decision, the CRTC reasoned that conventional broadcasters could still increase their revenues with the additional advertising time (from 12 minutes/hour in prime time to 14 minutes effective Sept/07 and to 15 minutes in Sept/08).
“That may be true in the English market but not for us,” he said. “In Montreal, there are already too many 30-seconds available. And what we get for the [spots] is lower in Montreal compared to every other major market – Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and so on. It’s not the number of 30-seconds that are available; it’s the price you get.
“So there will be more advertising time and I’m not convinced that is something the public wants,” he said.
TQS, co-owned by Cogeco and CTVglobemedia and run by Cogeco, will roll up its sleeves and “play the game”, Guimond said. “And maybe we’ll increase our revenues. But that won’t eliminate the immense gap that exists.
“It’s clear that the question of fees was THE solution. We asked for other things too, such as a liberalization of product placement (which was granted). But the number one problem required an important solution, and the only real solution was through fees.”
Guimond said TQS had suggested during the hearings that because the economics of the francophone market are not the same as in English Canada, the CRTC should consider distinct approaches. “We respect its decision to take a pan-Canadian approach. But when we go for our licence renewal in the fall of 2008, we’ll try to re-convince them to look at the francophone market specifically.”
As for the CRTC’s decision to set a 2011 deadline for the switch to digital, Guimond said it was expected and “we will be ready”.
Cogeco itself, a cable distributor as well as part owner of OTA stations, declined comment, letting TQS do the talking.
Quebecor Media, owner of MSO Videotron and Quebec ratings powerhouse TVA did not respond to a request for comment from Cartt.ca.
The TQS reaction was similar to that from la Coalition pour la radiotélévision publique francophone, made up of unions and employee associations from Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec and TV Ontario.
“I’m not surprised but I am disappointed,” said the Coalition’s spokesperson Sylvio Morin, both with the increase in ad time and with the rejection of conventional TV’s request for carriage fees.
The extra ad minutes “will probably increase revenues but viewers already complain there is too much advertising,” Morin said. “So it’s not a good decision.”
Given the decision probably will not solve much, he said, it’s time for the federal government to convene a TV summit to put everything on the table.
The communications sector of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, representing 7,000 Quebec media workers, said the CRTC not only “missed the boat” with its decision, but “is even putting at risk the future of generalist television in Quebec”.
Jean Chabot, president of CUPE’s provincial communications council, said in a statement that the lifting of advertising time restrictions by 2009 to help finance the switch to digital “will accelerate the exile of TV viewers to other broadcast sources”.
This will in turn, he said, “aggravate even more the financial crisis that’s hitting conventional broadcasters such as TVA, Radio-Canada, TQS and Global”.
“Who is going to accept this unbridled advertising barrage on the major networks? The speciality networks will be able to be more restrained, since they are already profiting in an outrageous manner from the existing system,” he said.
The union also favoured giving OTA networks access to carriage fees – “a practical solution that would have allowed equitable access to an important source of financing. Instead, the CRTC has maintained the imbalance which unduly favours the speciality channels,” he said.
Glenn Wanamaker is Cartt.ca’s Quebec Editor and is based in Quebec City.
