MONTREAL – A portion of the subscriber fees paid by BDUs to specialty TV channels must be diverted to private broadcasters if conventional television is to survive, according to Quebecor Media.
In a statement on Wednesday morning prior to its appearance at the CRTC hearings, Quebecor proposed that two conditions should be attached to the payments: the fees paid by BDUs to private television stations, networks, specialty channels and pay TV services should be negotiated on a free market basis, and, the changes in fees must have no impact on the prices paid by consumers.
"I don’t see anything outrageous in the proposition that all players in the television broadcasting industry should have access to the same sources of financing," said president and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau in the statement, in reference to specialty channels’ dual revenues streams of advertising and subscriber fees.
Quebecor says that the lack of sub fees for private over-the-air broadcasters has created “a dramatic imbalance in Canada’s broadcasting system”. Noting that specialty channels had a 24% profit margin (EBIT) in 2008, compared with 0.4% for conventional broadcasters, Peladeau justified his position by saying that it is the conventional broadcasters that spend the most on the production of Canadian content, make the largest capital investment in infrastructure, and must satisfy “the most stringent regulatory requirements”.
