CCTA requests expansion of small cableco exemption order to include Class 2s

The Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) has asked the CRTC to expand its exemption from licensing for small cablecos to include Class 2 systems unaffiliated with the four largest cable companies and all former Part III cable systems. The move is being pitched as a slight tweaking of the current exemption that will help small cablecos better compete. The Part III systems, defined under previous regulations that were changed in January 1998, serve high-cost remote and underserved areas, regardless of size, and have historically been subject to light-handed regulation. The Part III systems became Class 3 systems with the regulation change, but due to their size many don’t fall under the existing cable exemption order, which is restricted to those systems with fewer than 2,000 customers. The Class 2 systems have subscriber bases of up to 6,000, and the CCTA wants them included in the exemption as well as long as they are not affiliated with Rogers Cable, Shaw Cablesystems, Cogeco Cable, or Vidéotron. "We see this really as an administrative issue. We’re not even asking for a new exemption order. We just want an amendment to cover a very small group of additional companies that we feel probably should have been covered the first time around," says CCTA general counsel Lori Assheton-Smith. At the CRTC convention in Toronto in 2001, the CRTC announced that small cablecos with fewer than 2,000 subscribers would be deregulated – Public Notice 2001-59 (CCR, June 7/01). "This is not an ambitious proposal. We’re talking about 85 systems, or about 3.7 per cent of the whole cable subscriber base," Assheton-Smith adds. "To put it into perspective, Bell ExpressVu on its own added more subscribers in one year – last year – than the total number of subscribers that we are proposing to add to the exemption order." According to the CCTA’s July 5 submission to the CRTC, the proposed expansion of the exemption order would include 43 former Part III systems with 156,559 subscribers, or 2.1 per cent of total cable subscribers. It would also encompass 42 unaffiliated Class 2 systems with 143,829 subscribers, or 1.6 per cent of the cable subscriber population. Assheton-Smith says the commission acknowledged the initial exemption order was a first step, and that the CCTA was eager to "get the ball rolling" on the next step. "We felt that many of the arguments in favour of exempting smaller cable systems still applied (to the Part III and unaffiliated Class 2s). I think that everyone recognizes that these systems have some pretty unique competitive circumstances and unique operational challenges, given the size of their subscriber base and their lack of ability to have scope and scale of operations." Alyson Townsend, president and CEO of the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA), tells Canadian Communications Reports that she wholeheartedly supports the CCTA application. "It’s excellent. It’s well written and a well reasoned application. I just hope that the commission deals with it as quickly as possible," she says. "The CCSA will certainly support the CCTA’s efforts, although we may wish for further, faster exemptions…" She points out that it is "particularly interesting" how few subscribers will be affected by the exemption if it is expanded as requested by the CCTA. "It’s less than 300,000 subscribers," she notes. Townsend hasn’t yet decided if the CCSA will ask for a wider exemption in the process. "I don’t want to slow anything down, for one thing. I think it’s critical that this happen as soon as possible," she notes. "Would we like it to be wider? Yes. I think that the CRTC was amendable to doing this in steps. But I think CCSA would tend to take bigger steps."

CCTA requests expansion of small cableco exemption order to include Class 2s

Broadcast | 07/18/2002 4:00 am EDT

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