OTTAWA – The CRTC Wednesday extended the commentary process on the cable industry’s request to kill the mandatory carriage requirement of local FM radio stations.
As first reported by www.cartt.ca, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association has asked the CRTC to repeal section 22 of the Broadcast Distribution Regulations which say that Class 1 and 2 cable systems must carry all local FM stations in their market on their cable plant.
The CCTA told the Commission that about 4% of cable subscribers listen to the radio over cable and that its members could better use the plant capacity to carry more video services, including high definition television.
“As we move to into a world of satellite radio, digital music on television, this whole FM on cable model has become very archaic,” CCTA president Michael Hennessy told www.cartt.ca about the application when it was made public in May.
“Early in the days of FM, it made sense. It doesn’t any more. When you think about finding the most efficient uses of capacity in big centres, that policy gobbles up a lot of capacity that can be better used for video purposes.”
In some larger centres, cablecos have to find slots for 30 to 40 FM signals, meaning some are either not carried at all or are placed on impaired cable frequencies, to the benefit of no one.
“For me this was an easy one,” added Hennessy, “but it will be interesting to see the response. I just think that the penetration of the service is so low, there just isn’t any economic harm to getting those out of the analog space.”
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, in its reply, begs to differ, mostly. “(T)he CAB is of the view that CCTA has not provided compelling arguments that would justify repealing section 22 of the BDU Regulations,” reads its submission. “While the CAB recognizes that capacity on BDUs is not unlimited, the CAB strongly believes that the principle of local carriage of local stations should remain a cornerstone of the Canadian broadcasting system.
“Furthermore, the CAB notes that the importance of local programming was reinforced by the Government in its April 4, 2005 report Reinforcing Our Cultural Sovereignty – Setting Priorities for the Canadian Broadcasting System, which formed its second response to the Report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on the Canadian broadcasting system. In that report the Government noted that ‘Canadians have made it clear that local and regional content is important to them’ and emphasized its commitment to ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to such programming from a variety of sources, including private broadcasters.
So, the CAB is proposing instead that the FM stations be shifted to digital carriage (still as must-carries) from analog. “The CAB believes that should cable BDUs move all the must carry audio programming services identified in section 22 from analog to digital, it would ensure continued access to the services while at the same time addressing the capacity concerns identified by the CCTA in its application.”
Doing it this way, says the CAB, would not require killing off section 22, since it doesn’t say whether the radio stations have to be carried on analog or digital. It says FM stations must be carried on the basic service, language which could simply be amended.
The CCTA’s application, however, says that future carriage of local FM stations should be a business arrangement between the stations and the cable operator.
But, adds the CAB, section 22 is should be maintained as a de facto safeguard – against that old bugaboo of “undue preference.”
“Should section 22 of the BDU regulations be repealed and BDUs… be given the opportunity to ‘select which local stations, CBC stations and educational radio programming services make sense in a particular market’, (as the CCTA said in its request) the Commission will have removed an important regulatory mechanism that ensures unaffiliated audio programming services are not placed at an undue disadvantage,” says the CAB (Cogeco owns radio stations, as does Rogers and Shaw family-owned Corus Entertainment).
“While the CAB acknowledges that concerns regarding undue preference can be brought forward under section 9 of the BDU regulations, the onus is placed on the programming service to establish undue preference and/or disadvantage which traditionally involves a lengthy regulatory process. Accordingly, the CAB submits that section 22 acts is an important safeguard to ensure equitable carriage among all local radio stations.”
The CRTC today gave the CCTA a bit longer to respond to the CAB and others’ replies and extended the call for comments until October 24th.
