9(1)(h) COMMENTARY: Maybe the CRTC should impose a penetration rate based card on the whole industry

WHILE DROPPING IN ON the CRTC’s two-week hearing into new and renewed mandatory carriage requests (on cpac.ca) – and poring over some of the transcripts since its conclusion, two thoughts bubbled up above all the facts, self-serving opinion and pure BS that is a Commission hearing: The CRTC should impose some sort of mandatory penetration based rate card, a-la Bell Media’s, upon the entire regulated TV industry – or just deregulate the whole damn thing (which is not actually an option). Independent broadcasters (those not owned by a vertically integrated entity) have little, if any, leverage when it comes to...