GATINEAU — In a decision published today, the CRTC has denied an application by Blue Ant Media to reduce the amount it’s required to spend annually on programs of national interest (PNI) for the eight specialty channels it operates in Canada.
Blue Ant Media’s channels include A.Side, BBC Earth, Cottage Life, HIFI, Love Nature, Makeful, T+E and Smithsonian Channel. In April 2019, Blue Ant filed an application to amend the condition of licence for its channels’ group licence in order to reduce its PNI expenditure requirements from 13.5% to 5% of the previous broadcast year’s gross revenues, as of September 1, 2019.
In its application, Blue Ant noted its 13.5% PNI expenditure requirement is higher than those for Rogers Media (5%), Bell Media (7.5%) and Corus Entertainment (8.5%), as set out in a 2018 decision by the Commission.
However, the Commission pointed out in today’s decision that Blue Ant is required to devote only 25% of its PNI expenditures to independently produced programming, which represents only a third of the 75% required of the three large private television ownership groups. In addition, Blue Ant must devote only 21% of its previous broadcast year’s gross revenues to Canadian programming expenditures (CPE), whereas the other three TV companies are required to devote 30% of them, the Commission noted.
In its decision to deny Blue Ant’s request, the Commission said the broadcaster had not demonstrated a compelling need justifying the amendment, and “the Commission finds that the requested amendment is inconsistent with its general approach to PNI expenditure requirements and that Blue Ant has not provided sufficient justification for the Blue Ant group’s PNI expenditure requirement to be based on anything other than historical expenditures.”
