OTTAWA – Ethnic broadcaster Asian Television Network has filed a complaint with the CRTC alleging that Ethnic Channels Group’s ZEE TV has breached its nature of service requirement as a Category B niche third-language women's programming service and is actually operating as a general interest programming service that unfairly competes with ATN’s flagship Category A SATV service.
Citing the CRTC’s policy for third-language specialty Category A services, ATN filed a complaint with the CRTC in early June (which was posted to the Commission’s website today), alleging that ZEE TV’s programming does not reflect its nature of service requirement as a national niche third-language ethnic specialty Category B service.
That’s the service category that the CRTC approved in March, when it authorized an application by ECG to operate ZEE TV as a provider of entertainment programming that was targeted to women in the Hindi-speaking community. (ATN previously had the rights to ZEE TV’s Hindi programming, but did not renew its license when it expired on January 31.)
Instead, ATN says ZEE TV’s programming offers more general interest programming, which directly competes with ATN’s SATV, which is a third-language Category A service.
ATN alleges that ZEE TV may be trying to circumvent a provision in the CRTC’s Broadcasting Distribution Regulations that states that if the Commission grants a license for a specialty service in the same language as one of the existing third-language Category A services, the new third-language service must be packaged as a buy-through with the existing third-language Category A service of the same language.
“In an attempt to go around this buy-through requirement we are seeing more and more applications seeking niche programming services in the same language as the six existing third-language Category A services only to turn around and launch third-language general interest services,” ATN says in its submission.
As part of its submission, ATN included a package of 128 DVDs recording two different one-week periods of ZEE TV programming that it says demonstrates that ZEE TV “is offering mass appeal programming that is directed at the Hindi-speaking community at large.”
It also noted that more than 70 press releases promoting ZEE TV are posted on Ethnic Channels Group’s website, yet none of them describe the network specifically as a niche programming service for women.
ATN wants the CRTC to reclassify ZEE TV as a general interest programming service, which would mean the channel would be packaged as a buy-through with ATN’s SATV service that complies with the existing regulatory framework put in place by the Commission.
A response Ethnic Channels Group and comments from interveners are due September 3.
