TORONTO – If Rogers and Bell are on the same side of an issue – working together even – you know they see a threat.
Today, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telus, Sask Tel, MTS Allstream, and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance released a research report saying 81% of Canadians do not want to pay a new fee for conventional broadcast stations.
As has been reported repeatedly by Cartt.ca the concept of fee for carriage has been pushed by Canadian broadcasters and will be front and centre at the upcoming CRTC Television Policy Review beginning Monday, November 27th in Hull.
Fee for carriage has been spearheaded by Global Television and its CEO Leonard Asper, and would have Canadian viewers pay an additional monthly fee on their cable, satellite or telco TV bills for local channels such as Global, CTV and CBC which are currently part of their television packages.
Broadcasters say they need the fee in order to compete in a changing media landscape and to pay for Canadian content and high definition conversions. MSOs, DTH and telco TV suppliers say the OTA stations are already paid via preferred placements on the channel lineups and simultaneous substitution of ads over top of American broadcast channels.
In every case in the survey, the majority opposed any rationale for increasing rates.
For example, having the fee support conversion by conventional broadcasters to high definition format was opposed by (67%) and using the fee to support Canadian programming was opposed by (51%).
Faced with the prospect of increased cable and satellite bills, respondents said they would discontinue their service (20%), and an additional (37%) would downgrade their current service.
"The impact of these findings would be devastating on the Canadian television industry. Effectively this would introduce a regulated increase of the mandatory elements of cable, satellite and telco TV bills without any value added for Canadian consumers," said Phil Lind, vice-chairman, Rogers on behalf of the collective. "A tax of the nature proposed by the over-the-air broadcasters would lead Canadians to alter their current viewing habits likely resulting in decreased viewership for Canadian over-the-air and specialty channels and potentially moving viewers to alternatives outside the broadcasting system."
The survey was conducted between November 16 and November 19th, 2006 by the Strategic Counsel and has a national sample size of 1000 English-speaking Canadian subscribers. There is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1% 19 times out of 20.
