Afromedia urges carriage support for unlaunched channels facing competition

The CRTC should help existing Canadian specialty channels secure carriage agreements before allowing competing, foreign channels into the country, Brampton, Ont.-based broadcaster Afromedia Communications Inc. said. In an intervention filed with the commission last week, Remi Awojide, Afromedia’s director, said the CRTC should reject a request by Soundview Entertainment Inc. to add four U.S.-based Afrotainment channels to the list of foreign channels that can be distributed in Canada. He said those English-language channels, which include TV Naija, Afrotainment HD, Afrotainment Music HD and movie channel Africa Box Office, would compete directly with Afromedia’s existing Category B channel, African Movies and Entertainment Television (AMET TV), which is looking for distribution and licenced to air foreign programming targeted at African communities in Canada. “To the extent that carriage of four Afrotainment channels consumes BDU capacity and audiences, adding them to the Eligible Services List will very likely foreclose the opportunity for AMET TV and other Canadian channels to secure more widespread carriage—especially since, as Afrotainment/Soundview state in their application, conversations with Canadian BDUs about carrying their services are already underway,” Afromedia said in the CRTC filing. In a phone interview Monday, Awojide said AMET TV has aired programming though it has struggled to secure carriage agreements with Canada’s major broadcast distributors since it was granted a CRTC licence in 2009. Montreal local TV station Metro 14 (CJNT-TV) at one time aired five hours of AMET TV content each Saturday, allowing the broadcaster to earn revenues and gain about 33,000 viewers, he said, though that arrangement ended when Rogers Communications Inc. bought CJNT from Channel Zero Inc. last August. “Because it’s new management, Rogers kicked us out,” he said. “They said we have to deal with them fresh.” He said the independent broadcaster is turning to smaller broadcast distributors, and reached a deal for carriage starting in May, though he could not say with which company because the details are not finalized. The company hopes to establish an audience before its licence expires in November 2018, he said. “If we don’t launch, it’s going to be cancelled,” he said, adding that the company is close to signing a deal with a smaller distributor. “We have to do something.” Awojide said AMET TV will face more difficulties if the CRTC approves distribution of the Afrotainment channels in Canada. “It’s going to prevent us from launching, and apart from that, it’s the same content that we want to be showcasing that Afrotainment wants to come in and do,” he said. In an application dated March 3, Soundview said programming on Afrotainment HD would bridge anglophone African and African-American cultures. “By serving up a programming flow that integrates these two cultures, both of which are of interest to the distinct English-speaking African-Canadian audience, we will help Canadian distributors develop a more attractive offering for our target audience,” the company said. Awojide said the U.S.-based Afrotainment channels would feature more American content than Canadian. He said AMET TV featured content from Canadian communities when its programming aired on CJNT, including community events, African-themed music, movie and drama programming. “If Afrotainment comes in right now, yes, they’ll be showing African content, but they won’t be showing what’s going on in the African community in Canada,” Awojide said. Afromedia said in its comments to the CRTC that none of the Canadian specialty channels that received CRTC licences to serve African-Canadian communities have secured carriage agreements with Canada’s largest broadcast distributors. Many other ethnic communities, he said, are served by “multiple channels.” Awojide said the CRTC should provide more support to channels based in Canada before allowing similar, foreign services into the market. In broadcasting decision 2008-100, the CRTC said it would no longer consider unlaunched Canadian specialty channels when determining whether licensing a foreign service for authorization in Canada would cause a competitive disruption to a Canadian channel. “In regard to the Commission's consideration of unlaunched Category 2 services, various parties expressed the concern that this policy permits unlaunched Canadian services to ‘squat’ on a genre and thus prevent Canadian subscribers from accessing new non-Canadian services in that genre,” the CRTC said in the decision. “he Commission considers that, generally, it should no longer take into consideration unlaunched services when assessing the competitiveness of English- or French-language non-Canadian services, unless such a service presents evidence that launch is imminent,” the decision said. Michel Arpin, a former CRTC vice-chair of broadcasting, said in a telephone interview that the commission has often allowed collaboration between U.S. and Canadian broadcasters, such as HGTV Canada and Food Network Canada, which are partnerships between Shaw Communications Inc. subsidiary Shaw Media and U.S.-based Scripps Howard Broadcasting Co. “As a matter of policy, it goes back to the first foreign specialty services. It has always stated that it prefers a Canadianized foreign service with a Canadian component,” he said. Arpin said the commission has recognized that some Canadian specialty channels granted licences have not launched after failing to secure carriage agreements. “But the commission has always elected not to intervene,” he said. In a follow-up email, Arpin said neither foreign services or Category B specialty channels benefit from genre protection, “so there could be more than one service offering similar content.” Soundview declined to comment for this story. Reply comments from Soundview are due April 22. —With reporting by Danika Grenier at dgrenier@thewirereport.ca and editing by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca -- CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the number of viewers that watched AMET TV on Metro 14.

Afromedia urges carriage support for unlaunched channels facing competition

Broadcast | April 17, 2013

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