WINNIPEG – Drew Craig wants back into Canadian media.
The former CEO of Craig Media has applied to the CRTC for a relay distribution undertaking license for his company, Only Imagine.
According to the application, the company would act as a middle man, selling the two minutes per hour of advertising time made available on American cable channels such as CNN and A&E to national advertisers in Canada.
Fifty percent of the revenues from such a venture would go to create a new Canadian programming fund, writes Craig. The application estimates that the company would contribute $170 million to such a fund over the seven-year license term.
The proposed operation would insert commercials or promotional material into the local avails of a number of U.S. channels distributed by various broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) across Canada.
Of these local availabilities, 70% would be sold by Craig for commercial ads. BDUs would be able to provide the applicant with promotional material of their own to be inserted into 25% of these local availabilities. The remaining 5% would be used to promote the priority services whose distribution is required under section 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act.
Five million dollars of advertising inventory would also be made available, over the course of a seven-year license term, for the promotion of new Canadian drama and feature films. A further five million dollars of advertising inventory would be made available for the promotion of Canadian digital specialty services.
The company proposes to install equipment in approximately 20 head-ends and uplink facilities operated by a number of BDUs so as to enable it to insert the various types of promotional material described above.
The Commission has fielded applications like this before, most recently from 49th Media, a company led by broadcast veteran Kevin Shea, in 2003. The CRTC turned him down. Canadian cable companies have also asked that they be able to sell the avails themselves. Again, the Commission has turned them down more than once.
As the regs stand, 75% of the time must be given over to the promotion of Canadian cable channels while BDUs can use the rest of the time to promote their own programming. In the U.S., local ad avail sales is a multi-billion-dollar business.
– Greg O’Brien
