GATINEAU – If the CCTA was still around, it wouldn’t have been able to find consensus among its members for the CRTC’s TV Policy Review either.
While the schisms among the Canadian Association of Broadcasters members meant that association was unable to come up with a submission containing any consensus among its members, some of whom want large carriage fees for broadcasters, some who want small ones and some who oppose them altogether, fractures of opinion exist in the distributor world, too.
Two of the former Canadian Cable Television Association‘s largest members faced the Commission yesterday with diametrically opposed viewpoints on the fee for carriage issue. Shaw Communications, with 3.1 million cable and satellite (Star Choice) customers said it opposes paying conventional broadcasters a fee of any sort.
It made its views plainly clear in a series of newspaper ads.
A little later, Cogeco representatives said, "as a matter of principle," that it supports fee for carriage, said vice-president, corporate affairs, Yves Mayrand. Cogeco is also the majority owner of broadcaster TQS, which faced the Commission on Monday and asked for $1 per BDU subscriber per month.
(Quebecor Media, owners of both Videotron and TVA, also support a fee)
"We stand clearly in support of a broadening of subscription fees to private conventional television networks," Mayrand said in French. As others have explained, the tinier French market is especially vulnerable. "(T)he funding problem for programs of private conventional television, especially in the Francophone market, is severe and needs to be fixed quickly," said Mayrand.
Not addressing the issue and offering wholesale fees to OTA broadcasters "would be a tragic and irreparable mistake," he added.
Not buying it, said Shaw Communications. The addition of such a fee would make subscribers "go crazy," said CEO Jim Shaw, when asked about the issue. "We feel there’s no subscriber benefit to have that fee in there."
Shaw said he didn’t believe the broadcasters don’t have the money, for example, to upgrade to high definition, which is one of the reasons cited for a new fee. Shaw said what they lack is the will to spend on digital upgrades. "These are the investments that one has to make," he added, pointing to his company’s multi-billion-dollar capex spend over the past few years.
Shaw also questioned how CTV president Rick Brace, could say that CTV doesn’t have $46 million to upgrade to digital, and yet it’s parent company is spending $1.7 billion to purchase CHUM Ltd.
As for the smaller broadcasters’ complaints, Shaw added: "For someone to argue that Jimmy Pattison one of the richest guys, can’t afford to upgrade Kamloops, I just don’t understand."
Plus, his company’s recent acquisition of Norcom Communications also saw Shaw acquire CJBN, a small broadcaster serving Kenora and area. "Canada’s newest superstation," said Shaw.
The CEO said that after seeing what CJBN is and can do, he’s a fan of the small broadcast business. So much so, that he urged any of the independent broadcasters, if they think they can’t afford to spend on their business, as some alluded to earlier in the week, "you should maybe get out of the business and phone us to sell," he said. "If you don’t like that business, call."
When asked later if that meant Shaw was going to be more active looking at certain assets, like the A-Channel CHUM assets that Bell Globemedia has put on the block, he backed off, saying, "We’re not here to announce acquisitions."
In between Shaw’s and Cogeco’s presentation was Bell Canada’s. Of course, it too, opposes new fees. "We’re not a pot of money. We can’t do this as a charity to the industry," said Chris Frank, Bell Video’s VP programming.
Bell also argued that it would be illegal for the Commission to institute such a fee. Since it would be a new fee that delivers no new product or service, it "qualifies as a tax under Canadian law" – and the CRTC has no taxation powers, said Bell VP regulatory law David Elder. Telco TV – the group of Telus, MTS and SaskTel, also holds this opinion.
Bell Video also addressed the broadcasters’ demand that if DTH is going to carry one local broadcast signal in a market, it must carry them all. Impossible, said Frank. Bell ExpressVu already carries more than 70 local broadcasters and just does not have the transponder space to carry all 124 in Canada. Shaw’s representatives had the same thing to say on Star Choice’s behalf.
Even commissioner Elizabeth Duncan appeared to agree with Bell when she said: "It seems unrealistic to expect we’ll be able to add all 124 channels."
What Bell is experimenting with instead, are partial channels. It is testing the concept with Corus Entertainment’s CBC affiliate CKWS Kingston where the only time the local station is lit up for customers is during the local newscast, since that’s really the only time the programming is any different than what’s on CBC nationally.
CKWS appears in the ExpressVu program guide but if a customer tries to tune to it outside the local news programs, they are directed to surf up one more channel to hit another CBC feed. But when the local news is on, CKWS is delivered on that channel.
While Corus has been on board with the experiment, other broadcasters have resisted, even though except for the local news content on CTV or Global affiliates programming is all but identical. Frank said that beyond building another billion-dollar satellite, partial channels look like they might be the only way to get the local content from broadcasters to ExpressVu customers.
Shaw’s Star Choice, on the other hand, prefers omnibus channels, where the local new shows for local broadcasters are compiled and run back to back on a single channel. Broadcasters dislike this option even more than partial channels.
Commissioners also spent more time on the distant signal debate and the opinions of Bell, Shaw and Cogeco were similar to those of Rogers, who spoke Wednesday: They’d like to keep the distant signals and say their availability is a benefit to broadcasters.
As for the broadcasters’ threat to pull their distant signals if there’s no fee paid? "That sounds just like a negotiation to me," said Shaw.
"Broadcasters have expressed a desire to be carried and you don’t express that when it’s hurting you," said Shaw president Peter Bissonnette.
"We’ve never heard of any broadcaster that wants less carriage," added Shaw SVP planning Michael D’Avella.
Next up in front of the Commission, between now and next Wednesday are various cultural and community groups and unions, such as the Canadian Media Guild, which is scheduled for tomorrow.
