By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The fund that bankrolls consumer interest participation in CRTC hearings is warning that it is at a “critical juncture” with not enough money available to reimburse participants in broadcasting proceedings.
The Broadcasting Participation Fund said in a press release last week that it had less than $330,000 remaining in the fund to begin the year. In a busy year, it said, costs exceed $700,000.
“If the gap between available funds and qualified applications is not addressed, the Fund must cease operations either temporarily or permanently this year,” it said in the release. At the end of 2021, the fund had a balance of $601,000, according to financial statements.
The fund, which gets its money from broadcast ownership changes, was spawned in a CRTC decision in 2011 as a condition of allowing Bell to acquire the remaining assets of the CTV network. Bell was ordered to pay $3 million into the fund. From 2011 to 2018, the CRTC required buyers in three ownership transactions to direct $6.6 million to the fund, the release noted.
The fund said it has had to defer rates to participants in broadcasting matters by 25 per cent in 2021 and again this month. It said it has reimbursed participants for the first reduction in December 2022.
“In this case, though, if no new interim funding is made available and if the Fund is wound up in 2024 we may be unable to reimburse this reduction to applicants,” Robin Jackson, chair of the fund, told Cartt.
Jackson said meetings with Canadian Heritage and the Department of Finance in 2021 amounted to no interim relief. The board has also met with its participants twice to discuss “implications of the Fund’s financial position,” Jackson added.
The fund noted that the CRTC is expected to be seized by two additional mandates with the imminent passing of two bills – the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act – which will see the regulator determining how foreign streaming and technology platforms contribute to Canadian content and news sustainability.
“Unless funding sufficient to meet its mandate is made available by August 2023, the Board of Directors of the BPF will suspend operations and may permanently close in 2024,” the BPF release said. “It regrets the necessity to take such steps, especially when key new legislation and regulatory proceedings appear to be imminent.
“If increased participation by and deeper insights on behalf of the Canadian public are expected in CRTC proceedings launched to implement Parliament’s new communications laws, immediate and stable funding for the BPF is required,” the release added.
The bright spot, the fund noted, is that the CRTC in early 2022 ordered Rogers to pay into the fund $725,439 in equal amounts over three years as a condition of allowing it to acquire Shaw’s broadcasting assets. But the BPF added that the $240,000 expected this year will be insufficient to “support the requests anticipated by the Fund’s this year” and the remaining funds won’t be enough for the next two years after that, it said.
Still, Jackson noted that the fund’s board is hoping that the Rogers-Shaw closure earlier this month will ensure some relief going forward.
The sustainability of the BPF and the participants who rely on it to bring public interest matters before the commission is not a new concern. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a leading consumer interest group that is heavily involved in these matters before the commission, has previously warned about the long-term viability of its operations.
In fact, almost exactly two years ago, PIAC and the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications filed an application with the CRTC asking it to launch a proceeding into the sustainability of the fund.
The regulator declined.
