The deep fault-lines in Canadian broadcasting will be in full view starting Tuesday as the industry and its regulator gather to determine everything from whether Canadians can get HBO or ESPN, or pay more to watch television.
The broad scope of the three-week public hearings that begin Tuesday has caused some to fret that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has put so much on the line that it could undo a broadcasting system they say has nurtured a creative domestic industry while delivering an abundance of TV shows from around the world.
“I’m afraid if the hearings went the wrong way, Canadians could wake up one day and find that they have less a Canadian broadcast system, and more an American system,” said Ian Morrison of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
With so much at stake, key players have commissioned public polls, filed hundreds of pages of arguments, and even waged a war of words in the media.
In counter-point articles in a Toronto newspaper last week, Rogers Communications vice-chairman Phil Lind accused CTVglobemedia and CanWest Global Communications of mismanaging their businesses, then crying poor in support of their demand that cable and satellite carriers pay them for signals that are currently free.
CTV’s executive vice-president Paul Sparkes returned fire by suggesting the cable operators were greedy, saying that not only should they pay about 50 cents per over-the-air station—something that could cost subscribers anywhere from $2 to $10 a month depending on the market—but they should absorb the cost and not pass it on to subscribers.
Even more contentious is a demand by the cable and satellite providers that the CRTC dismantle part or all the regulations that shelter Canadian specialty channels such as TSN and Sportsnet from competing with the U.S.-based ESPN sports network, or The Movie Network from HBO.
“The possible fight on this would make the Ultimate Fighting Championship fight night look like wholesome family programming,” said Kaan Yigit, a technology analyst at Solutions Research Group.
It could also mean that some of these channels, and particularly smaller independents like the Discovery channel, won’t be able to survive, warned Morrison.
So what, say the cable and satellite operators. “If a Canadian specialty service has no audience it’s not entitled to live forever,” Lind said in an interview. Cable operators need the changes to adapt to the challenge of new technology, he added.
With more shows available on the Internet and other platforms, not to mention black market satellite dishes, Canadians will find a way to watch the shows they want, when they want, regardless of what the CRTC has to say about it, he said. “These rules were put in place in the ’70s and ’80s, but we’re in a different environment now,” Lind said. “We want to keep the system Canadian, but we also have to change the rules and open it up.”
There’s no doubt changes are coming.
CRTC commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein has signalled he wants to “rebalance” the system by lifting the heavy hand of regulations and introduce “more market forces… as long as they work towards the objectives of the Broadcasting Act.” That proviso likely means von Finckenstein has no intention of throwing the Canadian channels to the wolves, said Yigit, although it could mean more overlapping channels.
