It sounded like the kind of story that even Sun News Network couldn’t make up: The CBC saying no to money from private industry for the sole reason that it wants to compete with it.
A complaint has been filed with the CRTC by Leclerc Communication, the company that bought Quebec City stations CKOI (CFEL-FM) and WKND (CJEC-FM) when Cogeco was told it couldn’t keep them after its purchase of Corus Quebec. The complaint alleges that the stations have been trying to book advertisements on Radio-Canada’s television station in Quebec City to promote the stations, and that Radio-Canada has issued a blanket refusal because it has a policy not to accept ads from competitors.
This would seem to go against a very clear CRTC policy that says that media companies can’t give themselves preference over their competitors in things like this.
Convinced there must have been a misunderstanding, I contacted the CBC and asked the public broadcaster about the allegation.
Radio-Canada actually confirmed it. CBC and Radio-Canada don’t accept ads from commercial radio stations because they compete with CBC services. And they don’t see anything wrong with that.
I explain the positions of Leclerc and Radio-Canada in this story at Cartt.ca. In short, Leclerc wants to advertise on RadCan because it finds that the demographics of RadCan viewers match the listeners it’s trying to target. And Radio-Canada refuses because its advertising policy prevents it from accepting ads for competitors.
The policy is CBC Programming Policy 1.3.11: Unacceptable advertising. It bans tobacco ads, ads for religious viewpoints, “any advertisement that could place the CBC/Radio-Canada at the centre of a controversy or public debate” and “advertisements for services considered competitive with CBC/Radio-Canada services.”
Now, we can argue whether two Quebec City music stations with personalities like Les Justiciers masqués are competitive with Première and Espace Musique. But even if they were, so what? These are television ads, first of all, not radio ads, and if Leclerc wants to spend money this way, why should the public broadcaster say no?
More importantly, can it even do so legally?
The television broadcasting regulations, which Radio-Canada and all other television broadcasters have to abide by, says a licensee may not “give an undue preference to any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue disadvantage.”
A similar provision exists for TV distribution, which is why Videotron can’t give Quebecor-owned channels advantages over their competitors unless it can find a good reason to back it up.
But the CBC doesn’t quite see it that way. It argues that it’s not giving anyone an undue advantage, because it’s not accepting ads from anyone. Everyone’s being treated equally, so there’s no advantage.
Leclerc points out, though, that Radio-Canada’s radio services get plenty of advertisement on its television network. And giving free ads to its own radio stations and refusing ads from all competitors is pretty well exactly what this rule was meant to prevent.
Radio-Canada confirmed that the programming policy is set by the CBC board of directors, not by legislation or CRTC condition of licence. So logic would suggest that CRTC regulations take precedence over internal rules at the CBC.
The CBC rule becomes all the more absurd when you consider it in context. The CBC is facing a major cash crunch, seeing government funding tightened and now losing the rights to NHL games. CBC’s president is talking about “dark clouds on the horizon” because of lower revenue. So why say no to what is practically free money?
It would be one thing if this was a big corporate player wanting to buy airtime on the CBC to encourage people not to listen to Radio One or something. But this is a small independent broadcaster that just wants to expose his radio stations to Radio-Canada’s audience in Quebec City.
The CBC is going to have to come up with some real good justification for shutting the door to competitors. Bell or Shaw or Rogers would never be allowed to get away with something like this, and I don’t see why the CBC should be able to.
And if the CBC doesn’t come up with a good reason to refuse these ads, they should expect to be told to shut up and take Leclerc’s money.
Leclerc’s complaint letter can be read here. The full file is on the CRTC’s website in this .zip file. The CRTC is accepting comments on this complaint until March 6. You can submit comments here. Note that all information submitted, including contact information, becomes part of the public record.
(So far, only the Journal de Québec has covered this story aside from myself. We’ll see if others pick it up before the deadline.)
So you are saying that Sun News just makes stuff up. Provide some examples and prove it or withdraw the the comment.
Last night it made up the idea that Michael Sam came out of the closet in order to increase his chances of getting drafted, and that nobody in the U.S. cares whether an NFL player is gay.
In the aftermath of the tragic death of that woman at the Fabre metro station, I watched two polar opposite blowhards, Brian Lilley and Ethan Cox have at each other. Lilley was fully justifying that the woman’s hijab should be the focus of the story. That two kids have lost their mother and a family is shattered, well, who gives a shit about that.
Why did he do that? Because that’s the Sun Media/Quebecor nationalist narrative. The place is run by a mega, über separatist named Pierre Karl Peladeau. There is no doubt he is the proud holder of a PQ membership card. Everything you see there on Sun News is a joke. Nothing is meant to be taken seriously as credible information. It’s just for entertainment.
So Sun News Network is secretly separatist and anti-Canadian?
They peddle a narrative to make Quebec look bad in the rest of the country, thereby drumming up support to get rid of Quebec. I wonder how many of their personalities know that they’re being used that way.
Sure why not. Not like Post media columnists never make stuff up.
I don’t see how that’s relevant to Sun News or the CBC.
Why is CBC refusing ads from radio stations? is the same as asking why doesn’t ctv run ads for shows on global or any other competing channel.
The analogy would fit if CTV was refusing to run such ads. No complaints have been filed with the CRTC alleging this.
As far as I can tell the only *angle* you have here is that because it is a public broadcaster CBC somehow *must* agree to running advertising regardless of the source (as long as it doesn’t contravene internal and ‘required’ policy). I have absolutely no issue with them saying ‘no thanks’ to pretty much any kind of advertising as long as they don’t do so at the expense of a *different* competitors (favouring Shaw over Rogers or something similar). It is ludicrous to expect that they must treat themselves as a competitor (which is to say internal advertising does not count).
There is absolutely no way that Bell or Shaw or Rogers are under *any* onus to run advertising they don’t want to run. If they don’t want to run an ad they say ‘piss off’ and that is the end of it. Do you honestly think they are under any obligation to run advertising they don’t feel like running? Shaw sure as hell have no claim to air time on Rogers or Bell and the only way any of these companies would run advertising from a competitor would be if they felt the benefit (financially speaking) outweighed the perceived cost.
What I’m saying is that the Television Broadcasting Regulations say that a broadcaster can’t give itself undue preference, which easily could be interpreted to mean that the broadcaster can’t run ads for its own radio stations and refuse similar ads for its competitors.
The rule is about “undue preference”. It would be meaningless if giving yourself (or a related company) such preference was an exception, since that’s the entire point of the policy. It’s designed to prevent large broadcasters from using their size to discriminate against competitors.
If the CRTC rules in Leclerc’s favour, then it would set a precedent that they are. All of those broadcasters run under the same rule.