Controversy drives CRTC to reopen file on Chinese digital satellite channels

Bowing to pressure from an array of opponents, the CRTC has reopened public consultation around an application by nine Chinese-language general interest channels owned by China Central Television (CCTV) after the process had officially ended. The move is an unprecedented one, and the first instance since the commission changed the rules by which it considers licence applications from general-interest, foreign-owned, third-language digital TV services in December 2004. "The commission notes that this is the first occasion since the establishment of its new approach that it has received requests for further public process with regard to the addition of services such as those at issue here," reads Broadcasting Notice 2005-124-1, the amended and reopened version of BN 2005-124. The amended version was released on March 31. On Sept. 8 last year, the commission received a request from the now-defunct Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA) to add nine general-interest Chinese-language TV services to the lists of eligible satellite services for distribution on a digital basis. A call for comments on the licensing application was posted on December 16, with a deadline of January 16, 2006 for all comments. After the deadline, opponents to the channels’ licensing in Canada emerged, including member of Parliament Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas), the Ottawa-based China Insight Research Society, and Toronto’s Canadians Against Propaganda. Siksay and the two organizations approached the commission after the January 16 deadline for filings in the matter, claiming that because of the federal election and the holiday season they had failed to meet the deadline, and requested that the commission receive their interventions. The controversy around the nine channels stems from their connection to CCTV, China’s state-owned broadcaster, through their operator, China International Television Corp. (CITVC), which is owned by CCTV. Those opposed to the channels say CITVC/CCTV are mouthpieces for the Communist Party of China, and disseminate propaganda through their programming. "The Communist Party encourages violence and incites hatred. living in a democratic country…would not accept these kinds of programs," says Elaine Xie, co-chair of Canadians Against Propaganda. She points to CCTV’s treatment of such stories as the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the SARS outbreak that began in November 2002: in the former case, the broadcaster allegedly produced programming that glorified the attacks as repayment for aggressive US foreign policy, while in the latter instance it suppressed information about the outbreak of SARS in China. With the demise of the CCTA in February (CCR, Feb. 10/06), Rogers Cable assumed sponsorship of the licensing application for CCTV’s nine channels on behalf of other Canadian cable and satellite TV distributors. Director of communications Nancy Cottenden says the broadcaster has received lots of support for the CCTV licensing from various organizations and members of the Chinese-Canadian community – indeed, various community and cultural organizations, trade groups and other bodies have provided comments supporting the application. "Rogers Cable does not make decisions on what Canadians should be allowed to watch, but our goal is to offer them choice," she says, adding that the channels are already available to many Canadians with black-market satellite dish subscriptions. However, other Chinese-Canadian community organizations are signatories to the Canadians Against Propaganda intervention. On April 6, the organization and its supporters staged a protest outside Rogers’ downtown Toronto offices, hoping to pressure Rogers into withdrawing its support for the services. "The CRTC has reopened the public comments – why can’t Rogers reconsider its sponsorship?" Xie asks. She also notes that Rogers has been distributing Phoenix North American Chinese Channel (PNACC), another broadcaster friendly to the Chinese Communist leadership, since November. However, another licensed Chinese-language service, New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), which has a track record of speaking out against China’s government, has yet to air. If the services are licensed, there won’t be much their opponents will be able to do about the matter other than monitor the program and file complaints with the authorities if they feel material falls afoul of Canada’s broadcast rules and regulations. One of those authorities is the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), a self-regulatory organization for the broadcast industry that hears content-related complaints from Canadian viewers. Ron Cohen, national chair of the CBSC, says his organization has only crossed paths with CCTV’s programming once. In December 2001 Talentvision, a Chinese-language broadcaster owned by Vancouver’s Fairchild Media Group, aired a news item it acquired from CCTV. "In that particular case, Talentvision broadcast a news segment which was, frankly, insulting to Falun Gong and ought not to have been ," he says. "It was also a very violent newscast – we simply wouldn’t run a news segment like that in an ordinary Canadian environment." However, the CBSC does not censure entire broadcasting operations because of past complaints, Cohen says, and if CCTV is granted a licence his organization will approach it no differently than any other broadcasting service. "You could look at our decisions and see, there have been a number of decisions against CTV, a number of decisions against CHUM, against any broadcaster you want to find," he says. Prior to 2004, so-called third-language channels originating outside of Canada that had a broad general interest programming mandate were subjected to a competition test: if they were found to be a direct competitor to existing Canadian discretionary services, the CRTC could deny their request to be added to the digital lists. However, in July 2004 the commission approved nine third-language non-Canadian general interest services for carriage in Canada, while simultaneously denying six others for reasons of competitiveness with existing Canadian licensees. The differential treatment set off a protest by Canada’s ethnic broadcasters and the communities they served, who said that the CRTC should approve any general interest third-language service for addition to the digital lists simply because there weren’t enough services catering to viewers whose mother tongue wasn’t one of Canada’s two official languages. Accordingly, the commission dropped the competition test for all future applications by third-language general interest services, but kept it intact for use on a case-by-case basis for assessing applications from foreign third-language niche services as well as non-Canadian English- and French-language specialty services (CCR, Dec. 20/05). Rogers’ Cottenden says that the CRTC’s new attitude of approval towards foreign general-interest services in neither of Canada’s official languages aside, the commission will either decide to license them or not. If it does give CCTV’s services the go-ahead, Rogers and other distributors will offer them, but the viewing public is free to subscribe – or ignore – the offerings as it sees fit. "At the end of the day, they will be the ones that choose to buy the channels or not," she says. And while Xie is opposed to Rogers on the issue of CCTV, she does give the cable company credit as a multicultural broadcaster. "Rogers has made decent efforts to bring in ethnic-language TV stations to benefit the local ethnic communities," she says. "We also appreciate Rogers’ efforts to bring in Chinese-language TV stations but please, not from mainland China."

Controversy drives CRTC to reopen file on Chinese digital satellite channels

Broadcast | April 10, 2006

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