BDU and SPECIALTY HEARING: Looking to the sports world for inspiration

GATINEAU – While Rael Merson said repeatedly that he believed the conventional broadcast system will right itself, if left to market forces, there was one idea he brought up that he will hear about for a while. It’s the idea of a luxury tax. Merson, the president and CEO of Rogers Broadcasting, insisted during Monday's first day of hearings into the policies on BDUs and specialty services that Canada’s top two conventional broadcasters, CTV and Global, have been beating themselves up so bad buying programming Stateside every year, paying ever-higher for prime time fare. That, he said, is the real...