On Nov. 14, CTV Inc. pulled the plug on its applications for local conventional television stations in Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, citing a "dramatically changing economic environment," among other things. At the eleventh hour, the broadcaster made a 180-degree turn and is now opposing the other licence bids still on the table. An abridged version of CTV’s letter to the CRTC appears below.

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James Macdonald, past chair of the board of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, has been appointed to eNblast’s board of directors. The appointment is effective Jan. 1. Currently an executive consultant to CTV and Bell Globemedia, he was formally senior VP and chief media services officer of BCE Media Ltd. He was also president and CEO of WIC Television Ltd., prior to its acquisition by CanWest Global Communications.

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CCTA wants broadband rollout included in next budget
The cable industry is among the players who have responded to an appeal by Industry Canada for support for its broadband initiative. The Canadian Cable Television Association issued a news release on Nov. 14 urging the government to include the development of high-speed broadband infrastructure to remote communities in the next federal budget. "The cable industry recognizes that security is at the top of the Canadian government’s agenda. We are not asking them to change that or to return to the days of deficit budgets," says CCTA president and CEO Janet Yale, noting that there are small communities where the market alone cannot support the costs of building the infrastructure. In an update on the government’s broadband task force initiative before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Nov. 20, Michael Helm, director general of Industry Canada’s telecommunications policy branch, said that Industry Canada had a series of working documents outlying how the cost of rolling out broadband might be split between cable and satellite distributors and the government. But he said they were not at the stage where they could be made public. Industry minister Brian Tobin has insisted that he is not at odds with Finance minister Paul Martin over moving ahead with the government’s promise to bring high-speed broadband to every community by 2004. "I know that Paul Martin continues to be a strong supporter of innovation in Canada," said Tobin in a scrum Oct. 29 at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters conference in Ottawa. "We have an economy to sustain, we have to bring confidence back," Tobin said. "I think that…every department and every priority has to be measured against our immediate priority — security…and a variety of priorities have been affected, but my belief is that we can and will proceed with broadband as well."

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The chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage remains convinced that his group’s review of the Canadian broadcasting industry will result in improvements to the system, despite an extensive mandate and a lengthy process (CCR, Nov. 9/01). "There are two alternatives. Either you rush through something and you do a half-baked job or you take your time. And it’s not much time to do what we do," Clifford Lincoln told CCR following the completion of a morning of hearings on Nov. 20.

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With the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) having undergone a fine-tuning, all that Canadian Heritage is waiting for is its renewal. While the department says that it has completed changes reflecting an evaluation of the fund and a consultative process (CCR, Oct. 13/00), the cable industry says an extensive revamping has been put on hold until future financing has been secured.

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The viability of Canada’s not-for-profit multifaith specialty TV channel is at stake following the CRTC’s denial of a basic wholesale rate increase, according to the channel’s president and CEO. Vision TV’s Bill Roberts says he’s left with no choice but to contest the decision, which was part of the specialty service’s licence renewal issued on Nov. 2 – Decision 2001-669.

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A group of Ontario power companies argue that there is no crisis in the cable television business concerning access to electrical utility poles and thus a leave to appeal application to Canada’s highest court by the Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) should be denied. The power companies maintain that the Federal Court of Appeal did not err in ruling that the CRTC does not have the jurisdiction to set the rate of access to poles owned by provincially regulated companies (CCR, Oct. 26/01).

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Legislative changes may be necessary to clarify that grey market satellite TV activity is indeed illegal in Canada, Canadian Heritage ADM Michael Wernick told the House of Commons standing committee studying Canada’s broadcasting industry on Nov. 20. If the Supreme Court of Canada backs a December 1999 B.C. Court of Appeal ruling that legalized the sale of unauthorized U.S. satellite TV services in Canada, legislative changes could be used to rectify the problem, Wernick suggested. Michael Helm, director general of the telecommunications policy branch at Industry Canada, also appeared before the committee. He said his department has been "acting aggressively" to curb illegal sellers of U.S. satellite services in the country. "American satellite services don’t have the rights (to be operating here without a licence), and so we have been reasonably aggressive in enforcing that…but we have been getting mixed decisions from the courts."

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