GATINEAU – Sun News told the CRTC on Thursday that it would close its doors if it wasn’t granted a 9(1)(h) order, forcing it onto the basic carriage packages of all Canadian BDUs and onto the bills of all Canadian TV subscribers. The channel made the comments during the hearing’s reply stage on Thursday.
In opening remarks, Kory Teneycke, VP of Sun News, argued that even a must offer order, as was suggested by the Commission wouldn’t work. “Let’s be clear: a ‘must offer’ licence would not have a meaningful impact on the current trajectory of Sun News, and would inevitably lead to the closure of the station. Let me repeat: a ‘must offer’ licence would be a death sentence,” he said.
“So you’re ready to throw in the towel after two years?” asked CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais, noting that many companies have to spend money defending their intellectual property and that’s a cost of doing business.
Teneycke answered the question by insisting that Sun News is at an impasse in its negotiations with broadcast distributors (he actually suggested that some of them have been negotiating in bad faith). “If someone does not want to have a deal with you, they’re not going to reach a deal with you,” he said.
Blais suggested earlier in his questioning that the company should be pursuing undue preference applications if it feels it’s being mistreated by the broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs). He pointed to the potential cascading effect if Sun News were to be successful.
The idea of pursuing potentially multiple undue preference applications is not something Sun News is interested in, noted Teneycke. “The time value of saying we’re going to spend another year or two and a series of complaints and regulatory processes to try to gain access to the market in a fair and equitable way is just not sustainable from a business standpoint,” he argued. “I just don’t think it’s realistic for us as a business to pursue that route, which is why we’re clearly saying if that’s the path the Commission is going to take, it’s not going to work for us. And the net result of that decision will be no Sun News.”
APTN, which was the subject of criticism this week for its production company Animiki See from the Canadian Media Production Association, set the record straight in its reply. “The primary purpose of Animiki See is to assist young aboriginal emerging producers who have immense creative energy but need to develop their skills and portfolio to be able to access the major funding sources,” Jean LaRose, president and CEO of APTN, said. Contrary to some criticism of the production company, LaRose noted that only 68.5 hours of programming was produced through Animiki See and in all of these hours, the company held a minority interest.
Starlight: The Canadian Movie Channel used its reply appearance to correct what it said was misinformation presented by some of the broadcast distributors.
Hussain Amarshi, a film distributor on the Starlight panel, pointed to the concept of an online Canadian subscription video on demand (SVOD) service that would offer access to all Canadian films for $2 per month and then share revenue with the film distributors. Such a model won’t work, he said. “Film distributors never sell films for a subscription VOD service on a revenue share model,” Amarshi said. For example, Netflix acquires “all of their programming by paying a substantial licence fee. So the proposed business model you heard last week is pure fiction.”
Under questioning, he explained why a Canadian online SVOD service wouldn’t work. “That’s akin to saying that you have an all you can eat buffet and then we’ll figure out how much parsley you had and how much fruit you had and then we’ll parcel out the money and pay back the suppliers. It doesn’t work that way,” he said.
Stornoway Communications’ Fusion used the reply stage to highlight the exceptional nature of its service and the benefits it can bring to the broadcasting system. Martha Fusca, president and CEO of the proposed channel, argued that television needs to evolve to meeting the needs of a younger generation which interact with content on a variety of non-linear platforms.
“And when Michael Hennessy of the CMPA referred to the tsunami that will hit our system – he was specifically referring to the shift in new media models and consumption trends. Fusion can be our systems’ response these new market realities,” she said.
