Tag Archives: CRTC

| Media, Opinion

Five challenges for Bell in front of the CRTC

BCE CEO George Cope (centre) and other executives from Bell and Astral will be in front of the CRTC again on Monday.

BCE CEO George Cope (centre) and other executives from Bell and Astral will be in front of the CRTC again on Monday.

Starting Monday, Bell Media appears before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in a second attempt to convince it to approve its acquisition of Astral Media Inc.

The burden is on the applicant to convince the commission that this change of ownership is good for the broadcasting system. And since the CRTC has already rejected this acquisition once, it’s even more pressing for Bell to present a solid case this time.

So with that in mind, here are (in my opinion) the greatest challenges Bell will have to face to get this new deal through:

1. Stay humble: Nothing says “this company is too big” more than a supreme sense of arrogance. Many times during the first hearing last fall, Bell gave the impression not only that it knew better than its competitors, but even that it knew better than the commission. Whether real or not, that impression doesn’t sit well and perpetuates the idea that Bell getting any bigger is a very bad idea. Bell needs to come to the table believing that its proposal does more to benefit everyone than it does to benefit Bell, and not hesitate to answer the commission’s questions fully and honestly.

2. Explain its dealings with competing cable companies: Bell’s acquisition has come under a lot of opposition from just about everyone who provides cable TV service in Canada, with the exception of Shaw. Videotron, Rogers, Cogeco, Eastlink, Telus, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance and small independent cable companies have remarkably similar stories about how Bell is already using its power over programming rights to strong-arm them into abusive contracts over carriage and deny them mobile and other non-linear rights. Bell’s answer to this last time was that (a) its competitors are trying to re-argue a case that was arbitrated by the CRTC and has since been dealt with,  that (b) the CRTC’s vertical integration rules and arbitration process already protect against abuses in these kinds of deals, and if Bell was truly being abusive the CRTC would step in under those rules, and that (c) it’s in Bell’s interests to distribute its content as widely as possible and get deals done with competitors.

The first two points are valid, and it’s true that this issue isn’t directly relevant here. The third point is contradicted by the simple fact that Bell doesn’t have content deals for mobile and other platforms with its major competitors. Bell’s explanation for this, that its competitors have decided to conspire against it in order to make Bell look bad in front of the CRTC so they can gain a competitive advantage, sounds too far-fetched to make sense.

Even though they might not be directly relevant to this case, Bell’s troubled dealings with major competitors contributes to the impression that they’re already too big. Bell needs to reassure the CRTC that its relationships with its competitors are not one-sided, even if it means re-arguing these disputes.

3. Articulate a solid plan for programming: Bell was criticized the first time around for not having much solid to offer Canadians on the air, besides its tangible benefits package. This time around, there are some improvements, but Bell needs to sell them more. There’s the new Investigation channel it’s proposed, but cable channels are money-makers. There’s its plan to reserve space on pop stations for emerging artists, but rather than reserving 25% of its total airtime, it’s reserving 25% of its CanCon songs (or 25% of French-language songs on French stations). On TV, it’s promised to keep money-losing CTV Two stations running until 2016. That’s not an insignificant pledge, but 2016 is only three years away. Bell needs to present a long-term plan that not only makes obvious improvements to the broadcasting system, but does so in a way that requires Astral as well.

4. Focus on the intangibles: Last year, after facing strong opposition from competitors and the public, Bell came to the CRTC with an updated proposal that significantly increased its tangible benefits package. Setting aside that the benefits package was still very self-serving, the throw-money-at-the-problem approach didn’t impress the commission, and might have done more harm than good, reinforcing the impression that Bell thinks it can buy approval. Bell needs to show what it’s done to improve the existing CTV assets, and explain how it can apply that to Astral’s to make them better too (and better, of course, does not just mean more profitable).

5. Explain its radio divestment plan: The CRTC found that Bell’s original plan for radio assets, to sell 10 radio stations that put Bell over the maximum limit in large markets, and to have those stations be a mix of those currently owned by Astral and those owned by Bell, looked like Bell was trying to trade up. When I looked at the stations, I came to a similar conclusion, with some exceptions. But Bell isn’t changing its plan, and selling the same 10 radio stations. Bell has reassured me that its divestment plan is more complex than selling the lower-rated stations, but it will need to do a better job of selling this to the commission as the best plan for all stations involved, and for the competitiveness of their markets, if it expects approval. (It may have already done this — part of their plan was submitted confidentially to the CRTC  — but it needs to sell this to the public too somehow.)

| Opinion, TV

Book Television and the de-specialization of specialty channels

Updated below with CRTC decision.

These days, what little public attention is devoted to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is split between two major hearings taking place back to back: The mandatory carriage hearings, in which more than a dozen groups are trying to force themselves onto basic cable to get maximum audience or free money, or both; and the Bell takeover of Astral Media, which is heavily opposed by most of Bell’s competitors.

There’s another file open for public comment that’s much more minor, but much more representative of what’s happening to Canada’s television industry right now. Book Television, a specialty channel owned by Bell Media, has applied to the commission to modify its licence to allow for more fictional entertainment programs, like scripted dramas, sitcoms, feature films, sketch or standup comedy shows, and animated shows.

Its current licence limits these kinds of programs to 35% of their schedule over the week, and no more than 30% between 6pm and midnight. It wants to bring that up to 50%, and eliminate the separate limit on programming during prime time.

The reason is simple: Book Television wants to run more popular programs, and fewer programs that have to do with books.

Like all specialty television services, Book Television is tied to what’s called the “nature of service” clause in its licence. This is the clause that requires a specialty television channel to specialize in something. It sets its language and its topic. And all programming should fit its theme.

For Book Television, the licence says this: “The licensee shall provide a national English-language specialty Category A service that will feature magazines and talk shows, dramas and documentaries that are exclusively based upon printed and published works and offered with additional programming that provides an educational context and promotes reading.”

In other words, a channel about books, and about things based on books.

In the 2000 hearing where Book Television was first proposed to the CRTC (it was only one of several proposed book-themed channels, with Alliance Atlantis, Corus, Boxer Four Entertainment and Key Media also proposing channels based on books and literature), then-owner CHUM said “Book Television — The Channel will develop, over several years, shows on critics and criticism, kidlit, reading festivals and erotica, support for new writers with the WordFACT Foundation and more.”

CHUM wanted to expand on the offering of another channel it owned, Canadian Learning Television. That channel, since rebranded twice, got into its own trouble at the CRTC recently for straying from its purpose.

The idea was that drama programming would be presented in such a way as to educate viewers about books and encourage them to read.

The CRTC agreed, and awarded a licence for Book Television.

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| Opinion, TV

CRTC mandatory carriage applications show existing broadcasters are lacking

In coverage of the CRTC’s mandatory carriage hearings, which is probably the most important thing that will happen this year as far as TV subscribers’ wallets are concerned, various pundits have expressed opinions for and against forcing certain services on all Canadian subscribers. Many have questioned whether we should even have mandatory carriage at all, even for such clearly public service channels as CPAC and AMI TV.

But looking at the applications, and the reasons given by their owners for being treated as an exceptional case, I’m left not so much with a feeling that this service should have mandatory subscriptions and this one should not, but rather: Why is this service even necessary? Almost all of them seem to fill a need that should be filled by other broadcasters, but isn’t because it’s not profitable (hence why the service was started or is being proposed, and why it needs government intervention to stay afloat financially).

Here’s the list of things we’re being asked to be forced to pay for, and the other things we’re already paying for that should be accomplishing those things already:

Crime information

Who’s asking us to pay: All Points Bulletin/Avis de recherche

Who should be doing this: Mainstream news channels, other platforms

I can appreciate why APB/ADR thinks it’s a valuable service. And so can the CRTC, which gave ADR that status and put it on all cable systems in Quebec. But my biggest issue with this channel is that it’s completely useless if nobody watches it. And there seems to be little in its plan to address its ratings problems.

The channel is a mix of bulletins from police departments, usually listing suspects, with blurry surveillance camera photos and descriptions. It’s boring, and very unsurprising that when it tried getting data from BBM on how many people watched it, the number was so low as to be within the margin of error of zero.

There’s good reason to want to get this information out to the public, but a barker channel that nobody watches sounds like the worst way possible. Extending this to English Canada, where the channel will try to present local crime bulletins to a national audience, sounds like even less of a good idea.

User-generated youth programming

Who’s asking us to pay: Fusion, Dolobox

Who should be doing this: YTV, online video sites

I’ve given up trying to understand what exactly the point is behind these two proposed services, or how they would work. They seem to be targeted at youth, involve some sort of user-generated-content angle, and want to empower young Canadians by giving them our money so they can shoot stuff. Which kind of makes me think they’ll turn out to be like a high school TV newscast in the end.

I doubt either will be approved by the CRTC if only because of their unclear nature, but the fact that they exist suggests the existing youth-oriented specialty channels, particularly YTV, aren’t reaching out enough to youth and particularly minority youth and getting them involved in the process of making their own television.

Right-wing opinion

Who’s asking us to pay: Sun News Network

Who should be doing this: Mainstream news channels

Sun News is a favourite whipping boy because it’s so incredibly transparent to constantly nag on the CBC for getting government subsidies and then turn around and demand one for itself.

Having watched Sun News, I understand many of the criticisms against it, that it’s transparently biased, it skews its reporting and over-focuses on examples that help it build a right-wing narrative. But I also understand that, as annoying as it can be, it does present news and views that you don’t hear elsewhere. Whether because they’re politically incorrect or don’t fit the usual media narratives, many of the news and opinions expressed on Sun News are not wrong merely because they’re not shared by most Canadians. My biggest worry about Sun News isn’t that it gives a safe haven for right-wing thought, but that it might suck away the conservatives from the other news networks and polarize Canadian news just like the U.S. news channels. The last thing we need is media constantly reinforcing our distorted world views, left or right.

Described video

Who’s asking us to pay: AMI TV, Described Video Guide

Who should be doing this: All major broadcasters, major TV providers

The CRTC sets minimums on major broadcasters for the amount of programming it airs with described video. For closed captioning, it’s already at 100% or near that for most TV services, but described video is still far behind. So a channel devoted just to described video makes sense. If Canada’s large vertically-integrated companies could work together, they might have pooled their resources by now to present a channel like this for free and offer their programming in exchange for ad revenue. Instead, we’re asked to pay a tax to AMI so it can acquire this programming.

AMI is actually pretty well supported, even by cable companies, so I’m not going to harp on it too much. For the other service, the audio-only Described Video Guide, it’s more silly. Owner Evan Kosiner wants $0.02 per subscriber per month to create audio feeds for each cable provider in Canada that say what channels offer described video programming and when. Even Kosiner says his service wouldn’t be necessary if this information was available by other means. But set-top boxes aren’t good at offering information to the blind, and most TV providers’ websites aren’t the most accessible either.

If only a website had this information at a … oh wait, it does. Kosiner complains that it’s not good enough, but I would think that its technical shortcomings (not having the channel numbers listed for each provider) can be overcome more easily than starting up a new service that all Canadians have to pay for.

Representation of minorities

Who’s asking us to pay: EqualiTV, APTN

Who should be doing this: All broadcasters

Among the standard forms the CRTC makes broadcasters fill out are ones that list how many minorities they have on their staff, on air and off. The existence of services that target minorities makes perfect sense in a specialty channel world, but arguing that Canadians need to pay for them because they’re not represented in mainstream programming should force us to ask what’s wrong with mainstream programming.

Francophone programming from outside Quebec

Who’s asking us to pay: ACCENTS, TV5 (and, arguably, ARTV)

Who should be doing this: Radio-Canada, TVA, TFO

The fact that three services have made representation of francophone minorities in Canada a key part of their demands suggests there’s a real problem here. And there’s ample evidence that there is. Despite being a public broadcaster who, one assumes, would make minority-language communities a big priority because those minorities don’t have many commercial options, Radio-Canada has been very Quebec-centric in both its national news and non-news programming. So much so that a senator wrote a really thick report to complain about it. Things have gotten a bit better since then, but even then there’s this assumption that everyone watching Radio-Canada television is doing so within 300 kilometres of Montreal.

TVA is on this list because it has an agreement with the CRTC that it must be carried on basic cable everywhere in Canada (at no charge), and in exchange it provides some programming that relates to francophones outside of Quebec.

TFO arguably does fulfill this mandate as an Ontario-based public broadcaster in French. But nobody watches TFO.

Canadian movies

Who’s asking us to pay: Starlight

Who should be doing this: The Movie Network, Movie Central, Super Channel, movie video-on-demand services, Telefilm Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, federal and provincial tax credits

Starlight is the other big fish at this CRTC hearing, not only because of its expensive price but because of its big ambitions to give a shot in the arm of the Canadian film industry. It’s not so much a specialty channel as a new fund for Canadian movies. But Canada already has a bunch of different ways to finance the production of films, and there’s little evidence that the quality is getting much better.

There’s an argument to be made that the problems with Canadian filmmaking can’t be solved by just shovelling more taxpayer money into the system. They need better promotion, and to start relying more on actual consumer demand than government funding. Starlight won’t solve this. Rather, it will put Canadian movies into yet another one of those channels nobody will watch. And as an independent service that doesn’t benefit from vertical integration, nobody will be reminded that it exists (unless it uses taxpayer money for ads for itself too).

Pay movie channels like The Movie Network have quotas for Canadian programming. But they’ve also moved more toward recurring television series than theatrical feature films. If there was demand for a Canadian-movie-only channel, couldn’t we add it as a separate channel distributed with TMN and Movie Central?

And the rest

In addition to the above, there are services asking for distribution without any wholesale fee (Legislative assemblies of Nunavut and Northwest Territories, IDNR-TV, Canadian Punjabi Network) because they just can’t get carriage. Those have different issues which I won’t get into here.

There are also channels that you can’t really argue against. There’s CPAC, whose Parliamentary coverage isn’t replicated elsewhere. You can argue about its fee, or that it shouldn’t charge because it’s owned by (some of) the cable companies, but you can’t argue that it doesn’t need to exist. And there’s Canal M and AMI audio, which are audio-only reading services for the blind. Can’t argue against those without seeming heartless, and they don’t cost much anyway.

And there’s Vision TV, which doesn’t seem to provide anything particularly exceptional that I can see, despite how great Touched by an Angel, Murder She Wrote and Downton Abbey are.

| TV

Following the CRTC’s mandatory carriage hearings

Starting today until May 2, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is conducting public hearings into applications to impose or renew mandatory carriage for various television services. Mandatory carriage means that every cable, satellite and IPTV customer in Canada (or in a region, for those asking for a regional mandate) must have the service as part of their basic package, and television distributors are required to pay a regulated wholesale fee per customer to that service (though some are not asking for a wholesale fee). Many are coming here making big promises because this would mean free money for them.

You can get a general idea of what each is requesting from this blog post I did in January.

CPAC is livestreaming video of the hearings online. You can watch the feed with English translation, French translation or no translation.

The CRTC’s website, which seems to be struggling to deliver pages right now, has audio feeds (English, French, no translation) the hearing’s agenda. It’s reproduced in more readable form below.

Transcripts of hearings are posted on the commission’s website the morning after each day of hearings.

There’s also plenty of reading material from the media:

Stories about the individual appearances are linked to those appearances listed below.

On Twitter, the #CRTC hashtag is the most active one

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| My articles, TV

Sun News turns two — will it make it to three?

Today is the second anniversary of the Sun News Network.

Canada’s small-c conservative news channel launched on April 18, 2011, days before the royal wedding of the century, a historic federal election and the surprise death of Osama bin Laden. It promised to break stories that the other media wouldn’t cover, to give a voice to those it felt had been blacklisted by the other media, and to present ideas that were politically incorrect.

Even before it launched, it was attacked by the establishment and by left-wing activists. Combined with some reporting that failed to properly explain the issues at hand, this left many Canadians with an incomplete, biased or simply incorrect picture of what the news channel was about. I was skeptical about the quality of its journalism, but also encouraged that there would be a specialty channel out there that would create all of its own programming instead of relying on rebroadcasting U.S. specialty channels, airing reruns of TV series from decades past, or reshowing the same hit shows that have already aired on the broadcast networks.

I finally gave the network a review after one year. Most of my worries turned out to be justified. Its production values are cheap, it preaches to the converted, its primetime hosts (all white men) are unrelatable mainly because of the size of their egos.

Not much has changed in the year since. Most of the personalities are the same, with the notable exception of Krista Erickson (what she’s up to now is a mystery – her website, blog and Facebook page haven’t been updated since November). The shows still look the same, still sound the same, still have the same strengths and weaknesses.

I find myself watching it less and less these days, except for the sweeps I do of all the news channels when there’s breaking or other live events happening. It doesn’t have a must-see program, and with PVRs there’s no reason to stumble on it when you’re bored during the day.

But still, in an era where specialty channels are doing their best to de-specialize and go after the cheapest and most profitable content, it’s nice that there’s one force out there that believes original programming can make a network work.

Sun Forced

All that original programming is expensive. Thanks to the CRTC we know that it cost $14 million in 2012. Added to overhead expenses, Sun News costs $22 million a year to run. But it made only $5.7 million in subscription fees and advertising. And subscription fees, under 10 cents a month per subscriber, make up the bulk of that. The network draws only $3,750 a day in advertising revenue. Business News Network draws more than six times that.

Sun blames this low revenue on lack of subscriptions, which it in turn blames on the big cable and satellite companies not packaging it attractively. The channel has 4.9 million subscribers, which is less than half of the 11 million subscriptions to CBC News Network, but puts it on par with channels like Lifetime, OLN and Showcase Action, and well ahead of some other more niche channels, not to mention every French-language specialty channel in Quebec that isn’t forced on subscribers.

So it is coming to the CRTC, asking that it issue an order requiring all cable and satellite providers to not only carry the channel (some like Telus and MTS still don’t have it at all), but to add it to all their customers’ basic cable packages, and even force it onto analog cable as well.

Once again, there has been some spin on both sides about this application. Sun argues it wants a fair shot in this hyper-regulated environment, while its enemies say it’s grossly hypocritical for a group that advocates choice and freedom to be asking the government to force people to pay for something they don’t want.

The hearing into Sun News and all the other applications for mandatory carriage begins next week in Gatineau. I’ve written a story for J-Source outlining the case and Sun News’s chances of getting what it wants.

People ask me a lot how I think the CRTC will rule on a controversial application, and the truth is I don’t know. I can point to precedent, but applicants and intervenors find creative ways to argue why precedent shouldn’t apply. The CRTC’s decisions wouldn’t be controversial if they were easy, and the hard ones are hard to predict.

Still, we can look at a few clues that might hint at which way the commission will go. The biggest one is that it has already deregulated mainstream news channels somewhat, opening them up so they can compete directly with each other. This presupposes that the channels are similar in nature, which would seem to go against one of the main criteria for granting this status, that a service be exceptional. Similarly, granting this request would set its own precedent, encouraging every other new news network to do the same. Global and Rogers have new regional news networks, and would probably be next in line for mandatory carriage.

Sun also makes a less than solid case that it needs this status because it can’t reach subscribers. There are channels out there that would love to have 4.5 million subscribers. And the CRTC is unlikely to feel this is the proper solution to a dispute over packaging. Sun makes a good point that it’s not accessible on analog cable, but neither are CityNews, Global BC1 and every other channel that has launched in the past decade. It’s an argument to rethink policy about analog cable, but not to force Sun News on consumers.

So my instinct is that Sun News will be denied mandatory carriage, along with most of the other applicants that come in front of the CRTC in this two-week hearing. But I’ve been surprised before.

And if the CRTC does say no, how long will Quebecor keep financing it before it realizes that market forces are just not on Sun News’s side?

| Opinion, Radio

Bell/Astral’s radio divestment plan still looks self-serving

Bell’s list of radio stations for sale. The “Market Rank” column has limited use, because it doesn’t list how the stations to be divested compare to the ones being kept.

In its revised application to the CRTC to request regulatory approval for the purchase of Astral Media, Bell parent BCE promised that its revised plan would handle the commission’s concerns about concentration of ownership. Bell would sell off some popular Astral specialty channels including Family, MusiquePlus, and Musimax, and offload its half of Teletoon, Historia and Séries+ to Corus. The result would put Bell at just above the 35 per cent mark where the CRTC, according to its own policy, would normally approve such an acquisition (though the commission said in rejecting the first deal that this was more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule).

But what about radio? On that front, Bell’s plans are identical, with the exception of its revised proposal for CKGM in Montreal (asking for an exemption to keep it instead of requesting it be converted from English to French). For the rest of the country, Bell would keep all the Astral radio stations, except in markets where they would put the combined company above the CRTC’s common ownership limits (two AM stations and two FM stations in any market with eight or more commercial stations).

That comes out to 10 stations, in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa (Bell has already agreed to sell the two Ottawa stations to Corus). Bell submitted a list of the 10 stations it planned to sell during the CRTC hearing on the first application last September. It included seven stations currently owned by Astral and three by Bell.

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| Montreal, Opinion, Radio

TSN 690’s CRTC exemption: The pros, the cons and the misconceptions

With apologies to National Lampoon

With apologies to National Lampoon

If there’s anything that everyone can agree on, it’s that this is a passionate issue. Even Bell Media says it was taken aback last year by the outpouring of outrage over its plan to convert CKGM from TSN 690 to RDS 690 as part of its acquisition of Astral Media. Even though it was a minor related application of a $3.38-billion purchase, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission spent a great deal of time discussing the proposed change to this one radio station because of all the reaction. It was during questioning about CKGM that CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais held up a thick binder and said he didn’t have a summer vacation last year because he was busy reading all the public comments.

More than 700 people filed individual comments with the CRTC, the vast majority opposed to Bell’s proposal, and most not really caring about the larger acquisition. Three people without any financial interest actually showed up at the hearing to plead for the station, which is very rare and was greatly appreciated by commissioners.

This time around, things are different. Bell is taking the side of the fans, asking for an exemption to the CRTC’s common ownership policy to allow it to keep TSN 690 while also acquiring three of its four competitors in English-language commercial radio (including its main competitor CJAD). It started a petition and its radio personalities asked fans to fill it out (listen to Mitch Melnick explaining the situation the day the application was published), telling the CRTC why it should keep the station alive.

According to the CRTC’s website, there are now about 980 comments on this petition. You can read them in a series of PDF files posted here.

I went through a few hundred of them, and most of them are the same: heartfelt, angry, worried. These are the station’s loyal listeners, who say they will swear off radio altogether if their beloved station is pulled off the air. Many are from people in other cities who say they listen to the station online. Most argue that CKGM in its current form provides something unique to Montreal’s English-speaking community, and that alone is a reason to grant the exemption.

I’ve read at most a handful that say anything about the larger acquisition of Astral by Bell. Most couldn’t care less who owns the station or the others, as long as TSN retains its format, its personalities and its Canadiens games. Some even rant against large corporate media, which is odd when you’re indirectly supporting a mega merger of media companies. Some are even against the larger merger of Bell and Astral. One demands that Bell be forced to sell CHOM, CJAD or CJFM (Virgin Radio) instead.

But they’re all unanimous in that they want TSN 690 to be kept as is.

In reading these letters, it became clear to me that many of the writers have misconceptions about the application, about the CRTC’s intentions and about what could happen to CKGM. I hope to clear some of those up here. But first, I’ll present, as dispassionately as I can, the big reasons the CRTC should approve the exemption requested, and the big reasons it should not.

Why the CRTC should give an exemption to allow Bell to keep TSN 690

1. The format will go on: Bell has promised that, if it gets its way, it will commit to keeping CKGM as an English-language all-sports radio station for seven years, and will continue to air Canadiens games on it (as long as it continues to have the rights). This is, at least on the surface, the best possible outcome for the station’s listeners. Gone, for at least until 2020, would be the threat that the station might shut down because it’s unprofitable. And implicit in this promise is that the station’s staff would continue to have jobs (at least subject to the usual turnover that happens in radio). Plus, it would finally end all this uncertainty over the station’s future.

2. Consolidating sports on TSN: Bell hasn’t said that this would happen, but it stands to reason if it owns both CJAD and CKGM that Bell would move sports broadcasts to the latter. CJAD currently carries Alouettes games and select Impact games. CKGM could carry live broadcasts of all three Montreal teams (except where they directly conflict, which would logically see spillover go back to CJAD). Fans wouldn’t have to keep track of which station owned the rights to which franchise, and CJAD listeners who aren’t interested in sports wouldn’t have their regular programming interrupted by sports.

3. Retaining synergies with TSN: Though theoretically the station could continue if it was sold to, say, Rogers, any sale would strip the station of its branding as well as the advantages that come with being a member of the TSN family. With Bell’s claws firmly entrenched in the Canadiens, even if its ownership stake is minor, this becomes very important for an all-sports station.

4. Money for journalism and amateur sports: You could practically qualify it as a bribe, but in reality cash promises are encouraged by the CRTC and often help get things passed. Bell has promised to give $105,000 over seven years ($15,000 a year) to Concordia University for sports journalism scholarships (just what we need, more journalism students), and $140,000 over seven years ($20,000 a year) to support amateur sports in Montreal. These are not inconsiderable sums for a station that has been losing money since it launched in 2001. Though it may be pocket change for a $30-billion company, the fact that Bell is willing to spend it to keep a money-losing station on the air says something.

5. The cat’s already out of the bag: The truth is this same type of exemption has already been allowed. In 2010, the CRTC allowed a similar exemption in Montreal’s French-language market when Cogeco bought Corus’s Quebec stations. The acquisition resulted in Cogeco owning three French-language FM stations in Montreal (it already owned CFGL Rythme FM, and acquired CHMP 98.5 and CKOI). The commission said it could keep all three, despite the normal limitation, in exchange for setting up the Cogeco Nouvelles agency which would have CHMP as its flagship station. The request was billed as a way to save CHMP. Now it’s the most popular radio station in Quebec. By comparison, the CKGM request is for a station on the AM band and is for the station that’s last in the ratings.

Why the CRTC should not give an exemption to allow Bell to keep TSN 690

1. It would make Bell a dominant force in Montreal English radio: Allowing Bell to own both CKGM and the Astral stations would mean it would own four of the five established commercial English-language radio stations in Montreal, with only The Beat competing with it. The combined commercial market share would be over 70% for one company. This will be mitigated somewhat when the TTP Media group launches an English talk station at 600 AM, and when Dufferin Communications launches a low-power music station in Hudson/St. Lazare, but those will take a while to get established.

2. It would reinforce a bad precedent: Bell doesn’t have to put CKGM on the block. It could sell one of the other stations instead. But it’s forcing the CRTC’s hand by saying the sports station would be the one to go. Allowing an exemption here would be caving to Canada’s largest broadcaster by allowing it to get bigger, but also send a message to everyone that as long as you can spin a station as a charity case (even if it’s not actually losing money), you can get the CRTC to rubber-stamp an exception to its own rules.

3. There isn’t enough space for new competitors: Because Montreal is a bilingual market, and languages are counted separately in the CRTC’s policy, the airwaves are twice as saturated here as in other markets like Toronto or Calgary. Bell/Astral would actually own six stations in Montreal, with Cogeco owning five. There aren’t any more full-power FM frequencies available, and with new entrants like TTP Media and Dufferin Communications snapping up vacant AM frequencies, those are disappearing too. The more severe scarcity of channels here makes limitations on common ownership even more important.

Top misconceptions about Bell, the CRTC and TSN 690’s future

1. The CRTC wants to shut down TSN 690 / The CRTC has made a decision it is being asked to reconsider: The CRTC has not made any decision about the station, other than its decision last year to deny its request to switch to French (and that was only because the larger acquisition was denied). The request for an exemption is not being made in reaction to something the CRTC has done, but is a request from Bell to get an exception to a rule it anticipates the CRTC will apply. The fact that Bell bills this as “Save TSN Radio” may be leading to this misconception.

2. The CRTC wants to turn TSN 690 into a French-language radio station: This mistake is likely due to confusion between the two applications. It was Bell, not the CRTC, that requested that CKGM be converted from English to French in its first attempt to get approval for the Astral acquisition. It was done for the same reason, to get around the commission’s common ownership policy. In the new application, that’s gone, and there’s no threat of it coming back. Even if Bell is forced to sell the station, it would remain an English-language station unless the new owner requested a change, and that would be subject to a brand new hearing.

3. If Bell does not get an exemption, TSN 690 will be shut down: The reality of the situation may be that TSN 690 as we know it would be radically altered if Bell is forced to divest it. But it’s unlikely the station would be shut down. The 690 AM frequency is the best AM frequency available in Montreal, and another company would probably scoop it up if only for that. A company like Rogers or TTP Media might even keep the all-sports format, though there are no guarantees.

4. Granting an exemption is the only way Bell can continue to own TSN 690: The exemption is what Bell wants because it would be the best outcome for it financially. But there are two other ways it could keep the station: It could sell one of the Astral stations (or the CRTC could force it to sell one of the Astral stations), or the CRTC could deny the Bell/Astral acquisition again.

5. This is a language issue – TSN 690 can’t keep running because it’s an English station: Somewhat related to No. 2, this sentiment popped up in a lot of public comments. While it’s true that language is relevant to this discussion (because English and French stations are treated as if they’re in different markets), the rules don’t treat English and French differently. There is no Office de la langue française or official languages rule that is forcing the CRTC to limit the number of English-language radio stations in Montreal. There’s merely a rule that limits how many stations in one language in one market a company can own.

An event on Tuesday to show support for TSN 690

An event on Tuesday to show support for TSN 690

A show of support

Some of the station’s bigger fans are pushing harder to rally support to save it. In addition to the Facebook groups and blog posts, there’s a show being scheduled for Tuesday, April 2 at 6pm with some local bands. It doesn’t look like it’s official in any way, but it’s an idea of how important this station is to its small but loyal audience.

Deadline for comments is Friday

People wanting to comment on the Bell purchase of Astral, or the request for an exemption to the rules to allow Bell to own four English radio stations in Montreal, have until 8pm on Friday, April 5, to file an intervention. To do so directly to the CRTC, click here, select Option 1 and select the first application (2013-0244-7). Keep in mind that all information submitted to the CRTC this way, including contact information, is on the public record.

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| TV

CRTC lays down the law for OWN

OWNThe Canadian version of the Oprah Winfrey Network is not one of the CRTC’s favourite things right now.

On Friday, the commission issued what’s called a mandatory order — a kind of “do this or else” note that has the backing of the federal court behind it — requiring the channel to abide by the terms of its licence that it has tried its best to work around since its days as CLT.

OWN, formerly VIVA, formerly CLT, was originally licenced as Canadian Learning Television in 1996 as a channel that would “provide formal and informal educational programs on a wide range of topics.” (Even then, there were concerns — Commissioner Claude Sylvestre objected because it stepped all over provincial jurisdiction over education.) Its licence has been slightly watered down since then, but it remains at its core a channel focused on education.

Despite this, its programming has been largely of the mainstream entertainment variety. Under CLT, it aired episodes of The West Wing preceded by some comment by professors in a half-hearted attempt to justify the educational value. When it rebranded as VIVA, a network for “boomer women”, it just about laughed in the face of its nature of service.

One needs only look at its current list of “accredited” educational programs to see how it’s twisted things, showing general interest shows and getting small colleges to have courses where they critique camera angles or other silliness.

A look at its finances shows the move to OWN has been successful. Profit has gone up significantly, and the network now has a profit margin of 40% (that’s actually down from almost 50% in 2009), making $10 million a year ($8.5 million after interest and adjustments) for Corus.

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| Montreal, Radio

CRTC says no to Planète Jazz/Radio X licence change

CHOI 91.9

Planète Jazz lives! Well, kinda.

On Thursday morning, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released a decision denying a request from owner RNC Media to amend the licence of CKLX-FM Montreal (91.9 FM), changing it from a specialty jazz format to a spoken word one.

RNC said in its request that the jazz format did not bring nearly enough revenue, reaching only 18% of projections. So it proposed a spoken word format that, at the time of its application, was on only one other commercial station in French: the very successful CHMP 98.5.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this would have meant Montreal getting a Radio X station, as RNC owns the brand and its Quebec City station CHOI is very successful.

Sure enough, in August, the station switched formats anyway, launching Radio X Montreal. In order to remain in compliance with its licence, the station kept jazz music during the low-rated evenings, overnights and weekends (except a few hours on weekend afternoons when it airs rock music). The licence says that “a minimum of 70% of the musical programming broadcast to musical selections from content subcategory 34 (Jazz and blues)” — but there’s nothing that requires music itself to take up a certain percentage of the broadcast day. So theoretically it would have to air no jazz music at all so long as it aired no other type of music.

The CRTC’s decision doesn’t really address this issue, and the appearance that the station, while respecting the letter of its licence, doesn’t seem to reflect its spirit. In fact, it said: “The Commission analyzed the broadcast levels of CKLX-FM’s spoken word programming and notes that the licensee is in compliance with its obligations in that regard.”

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| My articles, Radio, TV

Bell/Astral Take 2: The Proposal

Bell CEO Georce Cope (right) and regulatory head Mirko Bibic will appear in front of the CRTC again to make another proposal to buy Astral Media

Bell CEO Georce Cope (right) and regulatory head Mirko Bibic will appear in front of the CRTC again to make another proposal to buy Astral Media

In case you have been living under a rock for the past week, the CRTC finally released Bell’s revised application to buy Astral Media. If you want to read it all, you can download it in a .zip file here. But beware, it’s 73 documents, and many of them are long (the Supplementary Brief, in which Bell makes its case, is 63 pages, plus an eight-page summary plus a two-page table of contents).

So what’s different this time around? Well, a lot. As we already knew from the Competition Bureau, Bell will sell some of Astral’s TV channels in order to get it down to about 35% of English Canadian TV viewing and about the same amount of revenue from French-language TV as Quebecor.

And as we knew from the point when they announced the revised deal in November, Bell will ask the CRTC for a special exception from its competition rules in order to allow it to continue to own TSN Radio 690 while buying the three English-language Astral stations.

I’ve compiled, in point form, Bell’s revised proposal for this story, which appears in Wednesday’s Gazette.

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| Media, Radio

Competition Bureau deal with Bell/Astral: No change to plans for TSN 690

The Competition Bureau issued a statement on Monday saying it has come to a deal with Bell over its acquisition of Astral Media. Combined with a statement from Bell, we’re learning some details about this deal and how Bell will avoid owning so much stuff it threatens competition in Canadian radio and television.

We’ll learn more when the CRTC publishes the application this week.

What we know so far:

Bell has come to an agreement with Corus that will see the latter buy the following assets for $400.6 million:

  • CKQB-FM The Bear 106.9 Ottawa (Astral)
  • CJOT-FM EZ Rock 99.7 Ottawa (Astral)
  • 50% of Teletoon/Teletoon Retro in both French and English (Corus already owns the other half)
  • 50% of Cartoon Network (Canada) (Corus already owns the other half)
  • 50% of Historia
  • 50% of Séries+

A separate deal between Shaw and Corus, which are both owned by the Shaw family, will see Corus own the other half of Historia and Séries+, plus ABC Spark. Shaw will take Corus’s 20% stake in Food Network and $95 million in cash. Corus has a press release on the two deals here.

Bell will also sell the following assets at auction:

  • Family (which includes Disney Junior)
  • Disney XD
  • Disney Jr. (French)
  • Musimax
  • MusiquePlus
  • CKCE-FM Kool 101.5 Calgary (Bell)
  • CHBM-FM Boom 97.3 Toronto (Astral)
  • CFXJ-FM Flow 93.5 Toronto (Bell)
  • CKZZ-FM Virgin 95.3 Vancouver (Astral)
  • CHHR-FM Shore 104.3 Vancouver (Astral)
  • CISL AM 650 Vancouver (Astral)
  • CHIQ-FM Fab 94.3 Winnipeg (Bell)
  • CFQX-FM FX 104.1 Winnipeg (Astral)

Corus can’t buy any of the eight radio stations listed here because of CRTC ownership limits in those markets (two AM and two FM in each market). Corus doesn’t own any stations in the Ottawa market.

The list of radio stations for sale (including the two to Corus) is unchanged from the one Bell presented the CRTC last year. That’s interesting because the CRTC didn’t particularly appreciate Bell’s plan to sell off some Bell stations and some Astral stations in order to keep the best ones (with two exceptions, the ones for sale are the lowest-rated ones in those markets of the combined Bell/Astral holdings).

In its decision in October, the CRTC said:

the decision to include certain Bell Media radio stations in the divestiture plan can be viewed as an attempt by BCE to trade underperforming stations for successful ones, which would not provide a benefit to the Canadian broadcasting system or create the conditions for healthy competition. Selling less profitable stations could reinforce BCE’s position in these markets, make the entrance of new competitors more difficult and reduce the total tangible benefits paid on Astral’s radio stations.

What does this mean for TSN 690?

No Montreal radio stations are listed, even though the purchase of three English commercial stations would put Bell over the limit in this city. When the new deal was announced, Bell said it would ask for an exemption allowing it to keep CKGM as an English station. That remains unchanged:

Astral and Bell heard the loud and clear desire of Montréal sports fans to retain TSN Radio 690 as an English-language sports station (Bell had earlier proposed to convert the station to a French-language RDS sports station to meet CRTC rules). Bell has filed a separate application with the CRTC requesting an exception from application of the common ownership policy to allow the continued operation of TSN Radio 690 by Bell Media as an English-language sports station.

This proposal, though it might be favourable to fans of the station, is far from a done deal. Buying CHOM, CJFM (Virgin) and CJAD would mean Bell would own four of the five commercial English-language radio stations in Montreal, or four of six when the Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy station at 600 AM launches. Would owning such a large portion of the market be too much for the commission to consider?

Expect opposition from Cogeco, which owns The Beat, the only station that wouldn’t be owned by Bell. Their opposition will be somewhat hypocritical, mind you, because Cogeco got its own exemption from the CRTC in 2010 allowing it to keep three French FM stations in Montreal (Rythme FM, CKOI and 98.5).

The fate of TSN 690 will be up to the CRTC. It could accept the exemption or force Bell to sell or shut down one of the four stations to remain under the limit (Bell indicated previously that if it had to sell a station, TSN would be the one to go). Selling the station might be difficult, because Bell would retain rights to Canadiens games, and TSN has previously said the station has never made money doing all-sports.

| Radio

CRTC approves power increase for CKIN-FM

Current (blue lines) and newly approved (black lines) contours for CKIN-FM

Current (blue lines) and newly approved (black lines) contours for CKIN-FM

Earlier this month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved a request from CKIN-FM, the commercial ethnic station at 106.3 FM, to increase its power, from 300 to 1200 watts.

The station (pronounced “Skin FM”), which is owned by CHCR, the same company that runs Mike FM 105.1 (the two operate from studios in the same building), was approved in 2007 and began broadcasting in 2010. It operates on a format similar to Mike, only its rush hours have French-language programming instead of English.

The application resulted in some very strongly-worded opposition from CKIN’s competitors, Radio Humsafar, Radio Shalom and Yves Sauvé of CJVD-FM in Vaudreuil. Some of their beefs go back to the competitive process that saw CKIN’s original licence awarded. Sauvé also applied for 106.3 for his Vaudreuil-based station, but the CRTC gave it to CHCR and forced Sauvé to find another one. He picked 100.1, which restricted the station’s coverage on the island of Montreal, mainly because there’s a community station in LaSalle on the same frequency. He opposed the new application because he had applied for use of the then-vacant frequency of 106.7 FM to give CJVD a better signal, and allowing CKIN to increase its power at 106.3 would have affected the signal on 106.7.

That was all made moot when the CRTC approved a new radio station in Hudson/St-Lazare on 106.7 FM last fall.

The other opposition was mainly about self-serving competitive needs, with station owners crying about how doomed their business model is if they don’t get their way. Humsafar, which applied for an AM radio station in that same 2007 hearing and was denied, operates a South Asian service on a subcarrier. It tried to apply again for an AM ethnic station serving the South Asian community in 2011, but was denied. Then it tried to convert the AM station it owns, CJLV 1570 in Laval, to an ethnic station, but that was denied too. The main reason behind these denials was the inability of the Montreal market to sustain another ethnic radio station.

Humsafar opposed the application, arguing that CKIN-FM was already encroaching on its audience after increasing the amount of South Asian programming well beyond what it first proposed. But the CRTC points out in this month’s decision that Humsafar, as a subcarrier service, does not provide financial information to the commission that it could use to evaluate the possible impact on its service, and in any case CKIN is not violating its licence obligations by having the amount of South Asian programming that it does.

Radio Shalom opposed for the same reasons as Humsafar and Sauvé, though it’s not clear what interest Montreal’s Jewish radio station has here.

The commission noted in its decision that other ethnic radio stations didn’t oppose the application, and the power increase doesn’t have an adverse effect on anyone else on a technical level. While CKIN didn’t show a pressing economic need to increase its coverage, the CRTC was satisfied of the technical need to improve reception by listeners who complained about difficulty receiving the station.

As a result, the CRTC has said yes to CKIN increasing its power. The pattern remains the same, pointing mainly to the northwest.

Leeja Murphy, a PR representative for CHCR, says she does not know when the technical changes required to increase the station’s power will take place.

| TV

Still no special tricks for watching American Super Bowl ads on cable in Montreal

Super Bowl on CTV

It’s the one time during the year that people really care. But there’s no change from last year. People who want to watch U.S. Super Bowl commercials on cable or satellite TV in Montreal are out of luck once again, because of CRTC rules.

For those unfamiliar, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission forces cable and satellite providers to perform simultaneous substitution — replacing U.S. channels’ feeds with Canadian ones when both are running the same programming — in areas served by local television stations. The purpose is to keep advertising dollars for Canadian viewing in Canada, so they can support the Canadian broadcast system. And 364 days a year nobody cares because there isn’t much of demand for local ads for businesses in Vermont or ads for DirecTV.

The Super Bowl is different because of all the hype surrounding its incredibly expensive advertising. But that alone doesn’t create an exception to the rules. So TV providers will have to do substitution during Sunday’s Super Bowl, forcing viewers to watch commercials from CTV instead of the originating American network. And cable and satellite providers will have to continue to calmly explain to irate subscribers that they’re only doing what they’re required to do by the CRTC, who will in turn have to explain what “simultaneous substitution” is and why it’s there.

CTV’s CFCF Montreal is carrying the Super Bowl (as is every other CTV station), so simultaneous substitution is mandatory in the area covered by its signal. That includes Greater Montreal, as well as (for Videotron anyway) areas like Lachute, Sorel and Granby.

And even though CTV is promising its own commercial goodies during the Super Bowl show, like announcing who’s going to host the Junos, and an “exclusively Canadian” ad from PepsiCo about Lay’s potato chips, Canadians from coast to coast will grumble about not having access to those multimillion-dollar ads airing in the U.S.

So how do you get around it? Here’s how:

Over the air

The simplest way of getting a U.S. network signal on Super Bowl Sunday is to pick it up over the air with an antenna. The government can stop a lot of things at the border, but the electromagnetic spectrum isn’t one of them.

This year, the Super Bowl is being carried on CBS, which is good because WCAX-TV in Burlington has a 443-kilowatt transmitter on top of Mount Mansfield, which reaches into the city if you have a good enough antenna. Because it’s a digital signal, your television will need a digital tuner (most HDTVs have this). WCAX is on Channel 22, or virtual channel 3.1.

Videotron (analog and digital)

Videotron has resisted substitution, especially for the Super Bowl, and does so only when absolutely necessary. Still, it is required to substitute both the standard and high-definition feeds in the area covered by CFCF.

This means all customers in the following areas will see their signals substituted:

  • Montreal and on-island suburbs
  • Laval
  • The north shore
  • The south shore
  • Joliette
  • St. Jérôme
  • Montérégie
  • St. Jean sur Richelieu
  • Vaudreuil-Dorion
  • Lachute
  • Granby
  • Sorel

Quebecers outside of Montreal (as defined above) and the Gatineau region (which is part of the footprint of CJOH Ottawa) will not have their signals substituted and will be able to watch the American ads on CBS channels.

Other cable providers (including Bell Fibe)

Same as Videotron, I’m afraid. They don’t have a choice in the matter. Whether they substitute their entire network or only where they have to is up to them.

Bell Satellite TV

Because Bell feeds the same data to all its customers via satellite, it is required (as of 2009) to substitute American feeds with Canadian ones nationwide. So even if you’re in an area not covered by a CTV station, you’re still going to see the CTV ads.

Shaw Direct

Because Shaw Direct includes technology allowing the provider to control what signals individual clients receive, it can implement simultaneous substitution selectively. The result will be similar to cable: substitution in areas covered by CTV stations, no substitution elsewhere.

American satellite providers (DirecTV, Dish Network)

These are technically illegal in Canada, but many people have found ways to get service north of the border, either by pirating them or using fake U.S. addresses. Since these are American providers, the CRTC doesn’t control them.

Online

The only legal way to get the Super Bowl itself online is through CTV.ca (which is streaming NFL playoffs for the first time this year). There will probably be black-market feeds, but their quality probably won’t match the HD signal you’ll get on cable or over the air.

The ads are another story. YouTube has a special site devoted to Super Bowl ads that you can watch whenever you want, in high definition. They have promised to make the ads available as soon as they air on TV, and some are already there.

Bars

Because most of the loopholes have been closed, there aren’t many bars advertising the American version of the game anymore. To provide a high-definition feed in Montreal, they would either have to set up an antenna capable of receiving the American station or subscribe to an American satellite service and hope nobody notices.

At least one bar in Montreal is promising U.S. ads. If you spot others, let me know in the comments.

Other loopholes

There are also methods that have no guarantee of success. You could try watching west-coast feeds. Some cable companies offer Seattle stations as a way to time-shift, and then forget to do substitution for live events like this. But broadcasters have become wise to people using this loophole. Videotron is certainly aware of it and will be substituting this channel.

You could also, I suppose, just go to Vermont or New York for the weekend and watch the Super Bowl there.

| TV

Fact-checking the debate over Sun News

Do you believe in fairness? Do you believe in freedom? Do you believe in Canada? Do you believe in puppies?

Both Sun News Network and its (primarily left-wing) opponents are debating the network’s application for mandatory carriage on cable and satellite systems, which was published on Monday and will be the subject of a CRTC hearing on April 23. Each has prepared talking points to further their causes for and against. Unfortunately, a lot of them are based on incorrect information or oversimplifications of complex issues.

This is primarily the fault of the CRTC, which has a very complex regulatory system governing television distribution (and in particular specialty channels), one that is constantly changing.

To help clear up some of this, I’ll offer some perspective on the claims made so far in this debate so you can form a better opinion (or, more likely, use them against your opponents in your Twitter flame wars).

For the claims from Sun News, I’ll primarily refer to tweets from “Canadian TV First”, its marketing campaign to support this application.

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| TV

CRTC considering new must-carry applications from Sun News, Vision, ARTV and more

Sun News Network wants to take away your freedom to not pay for Sun News Network.

That’s spin, of course, but it happens to be true. Quebecor’s freedom-loving, CBC-criticizing network is one of 22 existing and yet-to-be-launched cable channels that are applying to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission asking for it to require all Canadian cable, satellite and IPTV providers to put their channels in their basic packages and require all subscribers to pay for them whether they want them or not.

On Monday, the commission announced a hearing April 23 in Gatineau to consider applications related to mandatory carriage, as well as licence renewals for independent television stations and specialty services.

Different specialty channels have different categories that have different rights and responsibilities. Most new channels are what’s called Category B. Channels in those categories come with no requirement for cable or satellite companies to carry them. They have to negotiate carriage with each cable and satellite company, and agree on things like wholesale rates and packaging. Older specialty channels are Category A, which have genre protection, meaning that new channels can’t compete directly with them. They also must be made available on all digital cable systems, but can be made discretionary (meaning the subscribers decide whether they want to pay for them). Mainstream news and sports channels are Category C, which are designed to maximize competition and remove genre-related protections.

What’s important here is that some channels have more rights than others. But a few channels have the ultimate regulatory gift: an order requiring all television distributors to put the channel in their basic packages and charge for them at a rate set by the commission. These include:

  • CBC News Network ($0.15/month) (French-language markets only)
  • RDI (0.10/month) (English-language markets only)
  • Avis de recherche ($0.06/month) (French-language markets only)
  • The Weather Network/MétéoMédia ($0.23/month)
  • TVA (free)
  • Aboriginal Peoples Television Network ($0.25/month)
  • CPAC ($0.10 $0.11/month)
  • AMI ($0.20/month) (English-language markets only)
  • AMI Audio (audio only) ($0.04/month)
  • Canal M (audio only) ($0.02/month)

Adding these together, it comes to $0.85 per month or $10.20 a year in French markets and $0.78 per month or $9.36 a year in English markets that goes on cable bills for mandatory channels.

The commission doesn’t make this status easy to get. There has to be a compelling reason why all Canadians must have access to these services. Existing ones qualify because they provide essential news and information to minority-language communities (CBCNN, RDI and TVA), target underserved, disadvantaged minority communities (APTN, AMI, M), provide essential information on a non-profit basis (Avis de recherche and CPAC) or offer an essential service (The Weather Network/MétéoMédia, which got the status with a promise to become a national emergency broadcaster).

The official criteria for getting this status are more vague:

  • makes an exceptional contribution to Canadian expression and reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity;
  • contributes, in an exceptional manner, to the overall objectives for the digital basic service and specifically contributes to one or more objectives of the Act, such as Canadian identity and cultural sovereignty; ethno-cultural diversity, including the special place of Aboriginal peoples in Canadian society; service to and the reflection and portrayal of persons with disabilities; or linguistic duality, including improved service to official language minority communities; and
  • makes exceptional commitments to original, first-run Canadian programming in terms of exhibition and expenditures.

The key points here are that it has to be exceptional, and it has to be exceptionally Canadian. It will be up to the CRTC to decide if the new proposed services meet those criteria.

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