CRTC releases three-year plan, will consult on TV services

The CRTC will launch a “conversation” with Canadians about their television services this year and review its “basic service objective” regime in 2014, the commission said in an updated three-year work plan released Thursday. According to the plan, the CRTC will review its television policies between now and 2016, including those related to ethnic radio and TV broadcasting, aboriginal broadcasting, community television, cultural diversity, and, in 2015-2016, Category A “must offer” specialty channel licences. “ reflect our commitment to ensuring that citizens can participate more fully in Canada’s democratic and cultural life,” CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais said in a statement. “They will also ensure that creators can develop innovative content and deliver it across multiple platforms to audiences here in Canada and in other countries.” The commission will launch a conversation with Canadians about television services, though it did not say how the consultation would proceed or what topics it would touch on. Last week, Blais opened the CRTC’s hearing on mandatory carriage broadcasting applications by saying the commission “recognizes that consumers expect to be able to choose the television services they receive.” He added: “We also know that subscribers are more and more concerned with the affordability of television services.” As a part of the CRTC’s regulatory framework for vertically integrated broadcast companies, which own both broadcast and broadcast distribution assets, it ordered broadcast distributors to file reports detailing their efforts to offer consumers more television packaging choice and flexibility. Those reports were filed in March 2012. The commission’s new plan said the regulator will also launch a consultation process “to streamline and provide additional guidance and clarity” about its tangible benefits policy, under which companies acquiring broadcast assets pay benefits to support the Canadian broadcasting system. The CRTC will consult on how it determines the value of broadcasting transactions and related tangible benefit requirements, and tangible benefits policy will be streamlined over the next two years and re-assessed in 2015-2016, the commission said. The regulator will hold, in 2014-2015, a public “comprehensive review” of its “basic service objective” policy to determine which services “are required by all Canadians to fully participate in the digital economy and whether there should be changes to the subsidy regime and national contribution mechanism,” the CRTC said. —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

CRTC releases three-year plan, will consult on TV services

Broadcast | May 2, 2013

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CRTC releases three-year plan, will consult on TV services

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