By Ahmad Hathout
Television network TV5 Quebec Canada is asking the CRTC in a Part 1 application to raise the rate at which broadcasters must carry its channels by two cents to get through a difficult financial period before the next licence renewal date in August 2026.
The request would increase the rate to 30 cents per subscriber, per month in French-language markets and 26 cents in English-language markets. The station reasoned that the commission hasn’t adjusted the rate for the former market in 35 years and hasn’t budged on the latter market in 10 years.
It is proposing that the change take effect on March 1, 2025 until the next licence renewal date.
TV5 said the increase would translate to a revenue of roughly $402,000, compared to a loss of roughly $650,000 in the period between September 1, 2024 and August 31, 2025, and translate to a loss of roughly $350,000 compared to a loss of roughly $1.8 million between September 1, 2025 and August 31, 2026.
Since those last rate increases, the network said it has improved its offering with the addition of the UNIS TV channel. But headwinds, including shrinking broadcaster subscriber bases, reduced advertising revenues, and foreign competition have put it under financial pressure as programming costs have soared, it said, adding it has tried to capture streaming audiences but the revenues generated on digital viewership cannot make up for the loss of linear.
Despite this, the CRTC maintained its Canadian content obligations when it auto renewed its licence to operate, which means it cannot dedicate enough to operating expenses, such as salaries, marketing and broadcasting and management fees, it said.
“Without an increase in the rates set by the Commission as requested, TV5 Quebec Canada will find itself in a situation as early as 2025-2026 where it would be forced to live on credit, short of cash to pay its employees and suppliers,” it said. “A situation that is simply not realistic, let alone sustainable.”
And though it did get a boost from federal budget 2024 in the amount of roughly $770,000 from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, it is calling its situation “untenable” without the wholesale rate increase.
“The administrative renewal of its conditions of service and of the Order, under the same conditions, has the effect of prolonging the decline in the Service’s main source of revenue, which places the company in a precarious financial situation and jeopardizes the quality of programming that TV5 Québec Canada must offer given its structuring role in the landscape of the Francophonie,” TV5 said in its French-language application. “It is also becoming difficult to stimulate the production of programs from official language minority communities (“OLMCs”) to the desired level, despite significant cuts made by TV5 Québec Canada at both the both structural and operational.”
TV5 and UnisTV score 1.9 million French-speaking Quebec viewers a week, the network said, citing Numeris data. On an annual basis, based on its own research, the network reports nearly 40 per cent of French-speaking adults aged 18 and over report watching TV5 and/or UnisTV a few times a week or every day.
The CRTC has received several requests from other networks to boost their wholesale rate in the face of financial challenges – never mind requests to ease regulatory obligations, at least until the regulator can finalize the modernizing of the Broadcasting Act, which will bring online streamers as contributors to Canadian content.
Earlier this month, the CRTC denied an application from Accessible Media Inc. to temporarily increase its wholesale rate because the television network did not prove an immediate financial need.
Before that, this spring, it approved an application by Aboriginal Peoples Television Network Incorporated (APTN) to increase its carry rate by three cents, from 35 to 38 cents.
Outtv also recently filed an application to increase its wholesale rate, which it said is needed to continue to invest in Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ content.
The Cable Public Affairs Channel also filed its own application to raise the rate to carry its Parliamentary and public affairs programming.
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