OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed a complaint against Canwest Media made by the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union (CEP), alleging that Canwest breached local programming commitments, and the Commission’s policy on local advertising.
CEP filled its first complaint in November 2007, saying that Canwest’s decision to shift elements of local program production from its television stations to broadcast centres in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, would “contravene its obligations with respect to the broadcast of local programming”.
Saying the local stations would effectively “operate as rebroadcasting transmitters” and “unlicensed broadcasting distribution undertakings”, it also questioned whether allowing Canwest to collect local advertising revenue “when it has reduced its stations’ ability to present local programming”, ran contrary to the CRTC’s local advertising policy.
Not so, the CRTC told CEP in February 2008. The CEP then sought to appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Appeal, but was denied. CEP re-applied to the Commission in August 2008 with "additional evidence in support of its position”.
But the Commission announced Wednesday that while certain technical aspects of the newscasts will be moved to the broadcast centres, “control over the content of those newscasts will remain with the local stations themselves.” However, it acknowledged that it was difficult to make a final determination until the broadcast centres are “fully implemented”.
The CRTC also found that there was no evidence that Canwest is currently in contravention of its conditions of licence to broadcast a minimum number of hours of local programming on these stations, and told CEP that the “appropriate forum to deal with these concerns” is during Canwest’s conventional television licence renewal hearings.
