At least one producer is lamenting the dawn of the multichannel universe. Mark Starowicz, area executive producer of documentaries at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp and director of the popular Canadian History mini-series, refers to television as the Archilles heel of Canadian culture, in an age when music and literature in the country is thriving.

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The cable industry has scored a major breakthrough in its campaign to own more television channels, following a Dec. 1 CRTC decision granting digital specialty licences to three large cablecos. The commission’s decision to license 21 of 87 Category 1 applications – more than double the number initially suggested – is partly designed to entice cable operators to speed up their roll out of digital.

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The CRTC’s decision to license 21 Category 1 channels – double the number initially proposed – could result in Category 2 licensees having to wait even longer to get launched. Digital capacity is finite and with a mandate to make room on digital tiers for all Category 1 services, negotiations to secure digital carriage for the Category 2s could be cut-throat.

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In an announcement that caught industry executives and CRTC staffers off guard, Secor Consulting announced this week that Françoise Bertrand would be stepping down as commission chair on Feb. 15 to take over the strategic consulting practice at its Montreal firm. Bertrand’s five-year term was to end August 11, 2001.

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The CRTC is conducting an internal investigation into how a confidential list of digital specialty channel winners ended up on the front page of the National Post on Nov. 24, about two weeks before the decision was to be released publicly. Commission officials say the article came as a shock, although Canadian Communications Reports has learned that several people in industry were aware of the 16 English-language winners several days before the article appeared.

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