CRTC likely to mandate DTH carriage of regional CBC signals in licence renewals

The CRTC is likely to require that direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV distributors carry all the regional signals owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp./Radio Canada when it renews the licences of Bell ExpressVu LP and Star Choice Communications Inc. Much of the public hearing into those licence renewals last month was devoted to how many regional English-language and French-language signals were currently carried by each of the DTH operators, and there’s no reason for the regulator not to heed the government’s direction on the matter. In a report earlier this year, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages urged the CRTC to require satellite TV distributors to carry all of the regional CBC signals (CCR, Feb. 13/03). The government’s official response to the report in late summer concurred, stating that the Broadcasting Act supported the all-inclusive carriage of the public broadcaster’s regional stations. In its response, the government didn’t order the CRTC to comply with the committee’s recommendation, but it did strongly suggest that the regulator comply. The government indicated that it would further monitor the situation. When Michel Tremblay, VP strategy and business development at CBC/Radio-Canada, appeared before the CRTC during the licence renewal hearing, he also called on the DTH operators to immediately give carriage parity with the major private TV networks. Moreover, he called on the CRTC to make the Standing Committee’s recommendation a condition of licence. The CBC has 10 French-language regional signals and 17 English-language regional signals. Bell ExpressVu said that it could not carry all the regional CBC signals due to capacity constraints, and Star Choice executives noted that carrying all the signals would result in considerable program duplication. "ExpressVu argues in its reply that it has exhausted its capacity on the satellite located at 91 degrees... We do not consider this a reasonable response to the CBC’s demand for carriage parity," Tremblay noted. "ExpressVu has dozens of pay-per-view channels and other low-priority services on the satellite at 91 degrees and, if necessary, it could shift some of its low-priority services to the satellite at 82 degrees in order to free up capacity for the carriage of additional CBC signals at 91 degrees." Tremblay also called on the CRTC to require the satellite TV distributors to file satellite capacity reports so that the regulator would be in a better position to make informed decisions about carriage issues. Chris Frank, Bell ExpressVu’s VP of programming and government affairs, told the commission that ExpressVu is considering providing inserts of local programming, located on a specific channel, as a possible solution to providing the local news of the appropriate CBC regional channel in each area of the country. "The unique programming would be illuminated on the EPG (electronic program guide) quite clearly...So, there would be very minimal confusion," he explained. Ken Stein, senior VP of corporate and regulatory affairs at Shaw Communications Inc., Star Choice’s parent company, also told commissioners that the DTH operator could provide the various CBC regional newscasts on channel 298, or provide a hookup that would allow the viewer to receive the regional signal over-the-air. "There is also a technical solution, and that is that there is an ability on a receiver…which not many people have taken advantage of…which allows (them) to hook up an antenna back through the satellite receiver itself and receive…a very high-quality signal over-the-air via your box and into your television set," he stated. But CBC executives said that wouldn’t be adequate. Tremblay responded at the hearing, "Let me say that the carriage of our local news on a dedicated channel somewhere up in 197 or 203 are completely lost and are short of proper promotion. It goes against the grain in terms of attempting to nurture the viewership of the station because there is nothing else but the news and, in many instances, those channels go dark outside of the newscast."

CRTC likely to mandate DTH carriage of regional CBC signals in licence renewals

News | 11/28/2003 5:00 am EST

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