OTTAWA – The CRTC last week launched the second phase of its implementation of the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), calling for comments on the Commission’s proposed new broadcasting fees regulations, which would apply to broadcasters and online streaming platforms alike.
“The amended Act broadens the pool of potential feepayers from licensed broadcasting undertakings to all broadcasting undertakings, including online undertakings (undertakings ‘for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet’), a newly defined class of undertakings in the amended Act. It also eliminates some of the fees paid by broadcasting undertakings by abolishing Part II licence fees imposed under the current Fee Regulations,” the CRTC explains in its Broadcasting Notice of Consultation 2023-280, published Aug. 23.
The CRTC’s proposed new fees regulations would require broadcasting ownership groups to pay broadcasting fees, rather than individual broadcasting undertakings. Other proposed changes include setting a threshold exemption level of $10 million (Canadian) for the broadcasting ownership groups, and providing for an upper fee limit of 35 per cent of the Commission’s total regulatory costs for the year that any one ownership group would be required to pay.
The CRTC is accepting interventions on its proposed new broadcasting fees regulations until Sept. 22.
