Broadcast
(Graphic by Joey Sabourin/Hill Times Publishing)
Broadcasters push for urgent decision from court on streaming act payments appeal
Court | | June 13, 2025
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) encouraged the Federal Court of Appeal to urgently come to its decision on whether streamers can be required to contribute funding for Canadian news, citing the risk of greater financial challenges for independent broadcasters now that Global TV is eligible to receive funding.
The CRTC’s recent decision to add Corus Entertainment Inc.’s Global TV stations to the list of eligible Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) recipients reduces the amount of money that other independent broadcasters can receive from the fund, the CAB’s legal representative Brandon Kain explained to the court.
Partly spurred by the inclusion of contributions from online streaming services to the ILNF, the regulator considered revising the eligibility criteria of the news fund. While it decided to maintain the criteria, it did make Corus eligible for funding. However, the problem for other recipients — according to Kain — is that the payments that were expected to come from the streamers are being put on hold until their appeal against mandatory base contributions is settled.
Regardless of when the court issues its decision, if it ends up dismissing the streamers’ appeals then the contributions would go through, but Kain warned of potential harms that could happen if they take too long to come to a ruling.
There is a “possibility,” stated Kain, “that during the interim of the reserve period, the reduced lack of funding from the ILNF that this decision will create for other broadcasting undertakings could cause some of them to go out of business.”
This week, the court heard arguments from various groups across the Canadian broadcasting sector on whether or not the CRTC can require online streaming companies to contribute five per cent of their Canadian revenues to various CanCon funds, including the ILNF. The hearing was presided over by judges George Locke, David Stratas, and Monica Biringer.
After streamers including Amazon.com, Inc., Apple Inc., and the Motion Picture Association-Canada (MPAC) — representing major entertainment companies including Netflix Inc., Walt Disney Co., Paramount Global, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp.’s Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. — made their case, parties defending the CRTC’s decision took to the podium.
The CAB argued that the streamers’ appeals and judicial review applications should be thrown out. The broadcasters challenged assertions made by MPAC that the Online Streaming Act does not touch on supporting news production, pointing to language in the act that states programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should “include programs produced by Canadians that cover news and current events.”
The CAB maintained that the orders issued by the CRTC, directing streamers to make financial contributions, have a “rational,” “plausible,” and “irrefutable” connection to the act’s policy objectives.
Kain also argued that Parliament intended for the CRTC to have flexibility in enacting the policy objectives, giving it the freedom to issue requirements through orders or regulations.
The court also heard from the Attorney General of Canada (AGC), the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR), the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO), Directors Guild of Canada, and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN).
SOCAN took particular issue with arguments made by Spotify earlier in the hearing regarding royalty payments. The streamer had previously advocated for lower contribution requirements due to royalty payments it makes, arguing that they should be considered existing contributions to the broadcasting sector. SOCAN maintained that copyright royalties and Broadcasting Act contributions are “fundamentally different,” with the former meant to compensate rightsholders for using their works and the latter meant to fund specific content development programs.
“The royalties an online undertaking pays shouldn’t factor into its base contributions under the Broadcasting Act,” said SOCAN’s lawyer Casey Chisick. He called Spotify and the other streamers’ comparison of royalties and contributions “unhelpful and perhaps even misleading.”
The ISO, for its part, challenged the allegations made by Apple that the CRTC was legally obligated to redefine “Canadian program” before mandating base contributions.
The organization argued that the section of the act that Apple uses to support its argument does not impose a strict requirement to establish the definition before completing other actions. The ISO maintained that the CRTC followed its policy directions by soliciting comments on various mechanisms to support CanCon while directing base contributions “towards areas of immediate need.”
