CRTC to deliver review of TV industry

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will deliver its much-awaited review of the television industry on Thursday.

The federal regulator held three weeks of hearings in April that examined a number of issues, including whether cable and satellite operators should start to pay for signals from broadcasters such as CBC, CTVglobemedia and CanWest Global Communications.

It is the first major review of the cable and satellite television industry in Canada since 1999.

The decision issued by the CRTC on Thursday could potentially change the way Canadians watch television and how much providers are able to charge.

During the hearings, conventional broadcasters squared off against companies with cable or satellite distribution systems, accusing each other of greed and mismanagement.

Cable and satellite companies deliver television signals to about 90 per cent of Canadians and don't pay for programming from over-the-air broadcasters though they do pay a portion of subscriber fees to specialty channels.

The broadcasters argued they should get some of the subscriber fees to offset a loss in advertising share to the specialty channels and to help pay for the programming they produce.

Could result in fee increase

Cable operators had complained during the hearings that if operators had to pay for signals it could result in customers being charged $2 to $8 more in fees per month, which would scare away customers.

The CRTC may also decide to relax rules related to genre protection to allow more competition among small specialty channels, such as YTV and the History Channel.

Phil Lind, an executive at Rogers Communications Inc., told CRTC during the hearing that it was time to end those restrictions.

"Consumers have choices. We have to give them a reason to choose the Canadian system," Lind said.

Need to protect Canadian culture

The commission will also decide whether to remove restrictions that have kept U.S. channels, such as HBO and ESPN, from Canada and look at establishing more flexibility in the basic package of "must carry" channels that are offered by Canadian distributors.

Canadian actors, producers and cultural watchdogs have argued that it is best for the system to remain as is.

Popular American shows such as HBO's Entourage should be kept on the air on Canadian stations because those shows make money for domestic broadcasters, they argued.

Ian Morrison, spokesman for the advocacy group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting said those programs are a boon to Canadian culture.

"The CRTC has made sure that some of that profit is invested in creating Canadian shows so that there is shelf space for Canada in our audio-visual system," Morrison said.

If the CRTC bows to the cable industry deregulation it may mean more American stations but only at the peril of Canadian-made television, he said.

A study done in March found 55 per cent of Canadians believe Canada's TV production industry would not survive if the cable and satellite industry were deregulated and 74 per cent believe deregulation will lead to less Canadian programming on TV.

The CRTC has said it wants to strike a balance between providing Canadian content and allowing competition for specialty stations, possibly from U.S.-based broadcasters.

CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein has remained tight-lipped about his thinking other than saying he wants to "introduce more market forces … as long as they work towards the objectives of the Broadcasting Act."

Morrison said the current financial crisis may also have bolstered the commission's hand in arguing for the necessity of tight regulation of the industry.

"The philosophy or the ideological bias that regulation is a bad thing and markets can look after themselves is no longer popular in the financial sector and it was that kind of argument that the cable industry was using with the CRTC back in April," Morrison said. "I think appropriate regulation is back in vogue."

With files from the Canadian Press