CPAC has cut its flagship programs, could the Online Streaming Act have saved them?

“And that is PrimeTime Politics for this Monday, I’m Michael Serapio. For everyone here at CPAC, thank you for watching.” On April 20, Michael Serapio, host of PrimeTime Politics, signed off as he always did. “PrimeTime Politics is back tomorrow evening. Until then, take care." Marc-André Cossette, host of L’Essentiel, did the same. That was the last time either show would make it to air. Cable Public Affairs Channel Inc. (CPAC) axed its flagship shows the following afternoon. As their sign offs suggest, neither host knew it was coming. For years, CPAC has suffered from declining revenue as cable companies watch their subscribers flock to the modern world of streaming. CPAC is designated as a ‘must-carry,’ or a ‘9.1(1)(h)’ service by the CRTC due to its importance to the broadcast system. This means it benefits from a mandatory basic carriage distribution order. CPAC’s monthly wholesale rate is 13 cents per subscriber. Currently, that adds up to about $13 million a year. The announcement came just over a week after the CRTC approved a long-awaited increase to bring the monthly rate to 16 cents per subscriber by September, representing an extra $2.8 million a year. Even with the increase, that extra revenue only lasts as long as cable subscribers do. A press release on April 21 said CPAC’s subscriber erosion has nearly doubled since 2024. In an interview with The Wire Report earlier this month, CEO Christa Dickenson said since 2018, CPAC’s subscriber rate had declined by nearly 25 per cent. “People aren’t consuming news that way anymore,” Dickenson told The Wire Report following the announcement. “ is a reality check. It’s a heartbreaking one for the news industry.” CPAC’s mandate is to provide unfiltered access to Parliamentary proceedings, as well as “in-depth coverage of key events, processes, and debates that shape the development of public policy in Canada,” according to its website. “We can’t be duplicating what other people are already doing when all of budgets are just shrinking,” Dickenson said. So, the fate of PrimeTime Politics and L’Essentiel were written in the cards. The cuts were coming regardless of what the CRTC decided, Dickenson said. “There have to be very tough decisions,” she said. “This is one of the hardest decisions I made in my entire career. I did not want to do it, but I must do it. And those are two different statements.” Online Streaming Act could provide sustainable, long-term funding, says Dickenson CPAC will continue to fulfill its mandate, including the long-form coverage of events like party conventions, which CPAC covers in their entirety, something Dickenson said no one else does. In order to keep doing that long term, Dickenson said, CPAC needs a permanent solution; one she believes is found in the creation of a “services of exceptional importance fund.” But delays in modernizing the Broadcasting Act, the press release said, have prolonged “the uncertainty around when predictable, reliable, and stable long-term funding mechanisms will be in place.” The CRTC initially deferred its decision on CPAC’s rate increase application, citing the continued implementation of the modernized Broadcasting Act. It has been three years since the Online Streaming Act received Royal Assent, and it has yet to be fully implemented. Parts of the act are currently being challenged in the Federal Court of Appeal. Dickenson believes the Online Streaming Act is the answer to CPAC’s financial woes. The act would require foreign streamers that make $25 million or more in annual Canadian revenue to contribute five per cent of those revenues to certain funds to benefit Canadian and Indigenous news and content. But as it currently stands, the Online Streaming Act does not have funding mechanisms in place that would help CPAC, and the services of exceptional importance fund is currently just a hypothetical. The idea for the fund was originally pitched by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) in July 2023, which is also a 9.1(1)(h) service. The idea was reiterated at a public hearing later that year. In broadcasting decision 2024-314, the CRTC said as it continues its work to implement the act, it “will have an opportunity to review the support provided to services of exceptional importance…, to help ensure the long-term viability of those services.” But it has yet to make a decision on the creation of any such funding mechanism. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) following CPAC’s announcement, Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller said he was “disappointed” it is taking the CRTC so long to implement the Online Streaming Act, prompting questions of political interference. Exceptional importance fund needed for broadcasters to survive, according to 9.1(1)(h) services Monika Ille, CEO of APTN, told The Wire Report the CPAC cuts are proof of why the fund is needed. “We’re getting to a point . . . the loss of our subscriber fees is affecting us in a way where there is going to be no turning back,” she said. Ille shares Dickenson’s concerns with how long it is taking the CRTC to both implement the Online Streaming Act, and make a decision on the services of exceptional importance fund. “I do understand that it takes time. I do understand that it’s complex, and there’s many moving parts,” she said. “It’s just that the longer we wait, the more difficult it’s getting for us.” The Independent Broadcast Group, a coalition of Canada’s leading independent broadcasters, has also expressed support for the services of exceptional importance fund. The Weather Network, which is also a 9.1(1)(h) service, is one of its members. Kurt Eby, director of regulatory, government & affiliate relations, would not speak about the CPAC cuts directly, but expressed support for the fund in an interview with The Wire Report. Eby said although the health of the cable industry is changing, the policy rationale behind 9.1(1)(h) services has not. He said The Weather Network, along with the other exceptional importance services, are being held to the same standards, but working with less and less revenue to meet those standards. He added that having a mandatory distribution order can actually make it harder and more expensive to operate, because those services have higher requirements and conditions of license that are more “stringent” than other broadcasters. “The services are not any less important,” he said. “It’s just, they’re expensive and there’s less revenue there to do it.” Eby said if the broadcasting system cannot find a sustainable way to support these services, “it starts to look like a world where Canadians aren’t getting news and information from Canadians. And that’s always been kind of the core component of the Broadcasting Act, of Canada’s cultural policy.” “The Canadian cultural industry is actually a huge industry, a huge employer in the country,” he added. “I think it’s a very important one for Canadian identity.” Ille hopes that the cuts to CPAC will serve as an alarm bell and up the sense of urgency around the decision, saying, “there’s a problem if get the message.” “We’re all servicing people or programming that’s not done elsewhere,” she said. “If it wasn’t for us you wouldn’t see it.” “It’s very important. It’s a question of our survival,” she said. “We need that fund to continue.” A healthy CPAC is crucial for democratic sovereignty, says Dickenson CPAC’s cuts came as a shock to the industry, including the immediacy of it. When asked about why the cuts were effective immediately, without the opportunity for a final show, Dickenson said, “At the end of the day, I think that when we say that there’s a sense of urgency and time matters, no one hears those words in totality. This is definitely an indication of that,” adding CPAC just cannot afford to go on any longer. The decision received board approval on March 30. Staff found out about the layoffs just before the rest of the country, with Dickenson saying they needed to get the legal process squared away before they could inform staff members. The cuts impacted 12 positions, including Serapio and Cossette, “through a combination of terminations, contracts not being extended, and vacancies not being filled,” according to a spokesperson for CPAC. APTN News was the first Indigenous news unit in Canada. Ille is worried about what the CPAC cuts mean for the general health of journalism in the country. “We need our journalism,” she said. “It is so important. It’s the basis of who we are. We need those stories.” As a democracy watchdog, Dickenson argues that CPAC is “priceless” and is concerned about what the loss of the service would mean for democratic sovereignty. “Look at what’s going around us in the world and how Canada is implicated. We are in a wartime,” she said. “Sure, war has changed, but part of war now . . . disinformation is probably one of the biggest weapons. One of the biggest antidotes to that is the full-length coverage that CPAC provides.” Dickenson said she will keep advocating for the government to find a permanent way to keep CPAC alive. “We are the vaults, we are the record of democracy for decades,” she told The Wire Report in November. “And it would be a shame to see that threatened in any way, simply because of some timing issues around some regulatory pieces.” mcollins@thewirereport.ca

CPAC has cut its flagship programs, could the Online Streaming Act have saved them?

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