The Association québécoise des télédiffuseurs et radiodiffuseurs, which represents private French-language broadcasters in Quebec (namely, TVA, TQS, Astral, Corus, RDS, Radio-Nord and MétéoMédia), has pulled out of the Quebec Press Council en masse.

Their reasoning: They’re already forced to belong to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, so it’s a waste of money to belong to two organizations that dictate how they should run their news affairs.

The Council has decided not to fight the matter, but it puts the group in an odd position when it comes to complaints about these broadcasters (and certainly TVA will come up often as it still does news). They could still hold hearings about them, but the broadcasters aren’t going to cooperate, nor are they going to listen to the Council’s decisions, as toothless as they already are.

UPDATE: The Council responds with an open letter which is, frankly, unconvincing. See also a post about this at Les 7 du Québec.

ProjetJ has an audio interview with Thérèse David, former TQS VP and journalism professor, who defends the press council.

UPDATE (Jan. 23): ProjetJ interviews Corus to get their take on the matter.