CBC can’t meet new 2012 digital deadline, intends to ask for another extension

CBC/Radio-Canada says it does not expect to meet its new August 2012 digital transition deadline and that it hopes to receive another extension from the CRTC so that about 20 of its analog transmitters in mandatory markets are not required to convert to digital. Steve Guiton, vice-president and chief regulatory officer at CBC, said the broadcaster will ask the CRTC for another extension. “What it means is at the end of August 2012, we’re going to ask the commission to keep going,” Guiton said. “We’re going to ask for another year or another two years, and we’re going to try to keep the analogs going for as long as we can.” On Aug. 16—15 days before Canada’s digital transition deadline on Aug. 31—the CRTC announced that it would give the CBC permission to continue broadcasting analog, over-the-air television signals on 22 transmitters until Aug. 31, 2012, a year after the official deadline. By the transition deadline this week, all broadcasters operating in large, mandatory markets are required to convert their over-the-air signals to digital. Bell Media Inc., which owns the CTV network, quickly criticized the CRTC's extension as one that created an uneven playing field between public and private broadcasters. The CBC has stuck to a digital transition plan that will install 27 digital transmitters by the deadline, but only 25 of those would cover off obligations to transition to digital in mandatory markets. The CBC failed to make the transition for 22 transmitters in mandatory markets, which have now received a one-year extension. “The commission gave us one year and I think, in the commission’s mind, they work on an administrative timeframe,” Guiton said. “They gave us one year, but we would’ve been happy had they given us two or three. It didn’t matter to us, because in some sense we’re going to keep the analog going for as long as possible.” Guiton said the CBC hopes the markets serving the 22 analog transmitters will be treated as non-mandatory markets so that they can be exempted from a requirement for digital conversion and keep going past the new deadline in 2012. The CBC, as a public broadcaster, is airing programming in all markets and, unlike private broadcasters, cannot shut down operations in some markets, Guiton said. That has made the transition costly. In a previous interview, Guiton estimated new digital transmitters to cost an average of about $1 million each. “There are private broadcasters who do not have to be there, so they have chosen not to be there,” Guiton said. “The difference for the CBC/Radio-Canada is that we have such an extensive network historically, as we were given money from the government going past decades now, that we have a huge network of 658 transmitters across the country. So naturally, in the markets that have been designated as mandatory by the CRTC, we’re there, but we’re in all of those markets,” Guiton added. The CRTC, when it announced its extension for the CBC, noted that the broadcaster has a unique mandate to serve the entire Canadian population. Guiton said the outlook is doubtful for the digital conversion of its remaining 22 mandatory transmitters, which span from Calgary, Alta. to Moncton, N.B. “I don’t want to say that the 22 transmitters will never go digital, because maybe as we go forward we’ll look at new options,” he said. “But I think it’s fair to say that with those 22—generally 99 per cent of them are never going digital.” Guiton said the broadcaster does not intend to seek financial assistance from the government for its transition plans. “We’ve decided that the government has its own fiscal challenges and we are going to make the digital transition on our own, from our existing resources,” he said. “It’s on that basis that we’ve come up with that plan and we’re trying to do our best.” In July, Heritage Minister James Moore said the CBC had to “do its part” to assist the government in its efforts to cut spending and balance the federal budget by its targeted date of 2015. “The idea that the CBC can’t find five per cent of efficiencies within the CBC to give back to the broader economic framework, I think, is silly,” Moore said in an interview on CBC Radio program Q. In a previous interview with The Wire Report, Michel Arpin, the former vice-chair of broadcasting at the CRTC and now a professor at the Université de Montreal, said there is some justification for the CRTC's extension. “As long as there is no impairment to the new digital services of the Canadian and U.S. broadcasters, there are merits to extend it by one year,” Arpin said. Arpin agreed that CBC’s slow transition process can be attributed to a lack of funding. “If you look at the financial statements of CBC, you will see that their capital expenditure budget nowadays is smaller amortization,” he said. “It means that the government is not financing capital expenditures properly. That’s one of the reasons they have not been able to do all of the transition.” Arpin added that the CBC has been investing in new stations in Quebec and that it has spent funds to replace equipment and invest in new technology. He noted that the commission, in its release about the CBC digital transition extension, said the issue would come up at the CBC’s licence renewal hearing next June. David Elder, a communications lawyer at Stikeman Elliott in Ottawa, said he was surprised that the CBC says it cannot meet the new deadline but added he would not doubt another extension being granted. “If the commission turns it down and the CBC does not comply—what do you do?” he said in an interview. “It’s a national public broadcaster. Do they just stop broadcasting in analog to all of those repeaters and thereby remove over-the-air reception to a lot of Canadians? It’s a difficult position for the commission to be in.” Elder added: “If I had to bet on it, I expect that it would still grant an extension—although perhaps a grudging one.” Elder also warned that, as a regulator, the commission may be less inclined to grant a second extension when it has “just given them exactly what they wanted.” Gregory Taylor, a broadcasting expert and post-doctoral fellow at Ryerson University, wrote in an email that the CBC's extension should have been expected by the industry. “The government was asked repeatedly to provide extra funding to assist the CBC and it never came. So none of this should be a surprise,” he wrote. Taylor said the CRTC's extension means that the CBC's “over-the-air is being left to whither at a time when the new digital technology makes it better than ever.” He said the CBC should take advantage of multiplexing technology, which allows one transmitter to broadcast several channels, and over-the-air mobile broadcasting. dgrenier@thewirereport.ca

CBC can’t meet new 2012 digital deadline, intends to ask for another extension

News | 08/29/2011 8:34 pm EDT

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