HOLDING A HEARING ON fee-for-carriage one month after a hearing on fee-for-carriage sounds stupid to the extreme, on the face of it, anyway.
However, in a very political move, Heritage Minister James Moore yesterday told the CRTC it must hold a hearing into the issue of fee-for-carriage so that consumers can have a chance to participate in the process and make their voices heard.
Of course, mobs of consumers (more than 12,000 submitted form letters supplied to them by Rogers) are already participating, or have already participated, in BNC 2009-411, and November’s hearing into group licensing and fee-for-carriage is just the latest in a series of public processes on the issue of paying local broadcasters for their signals.
Local ’casters have been calling cable companies pirates off and on for nearly 60 years, wanting direct payment for their signals. But because they were rolling in so much advertiser dough as cable, and later, satellite, allowed those signals to stretch much farther and with better quality (to say nothing of the regulatory compromises of simultaneous substitution and primary channel placement), those broadcaster complaints were largely muffled through the ’80s and ’90s.
Then as this past decade has seen increased audience fragmentation, the proliferation of new media, and the growth of new viewing devices, advertisers gained many new places to spend – and the big broadcasters are now just one building block. A cornerstone still, but just one piece of the building. Of course, the recession has exacerbated the problem over the past 18 months.
We all know what the fight for fee-for-carriage is about so I’m not going to repeat where the carriers and broadcasters stand and why. We went over that ad nauseum earlier this week. The industry knows where it stands.
But, after reading through more of the consumer input, here’s what they are saying, and I’m paraphrasing, of course:
“WE’RE MAD AS HELL AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE.”
It doesn’t matter whether the Canadians who chose to participate in 2009-411 were egged on by their local broadcaster or BDU, the message is loud and clear: They don’t want to pay any of those companies any more of their money! (We’ve compiled some of the comments below, complete with names and towns, if you’re interested. Some need help with spelling and grammar, but I’m no English teacher and say good on them for participating, so the comments below are as they were reproduced on the CRTC site.)
So, I can understand why Minister Moore called the second FFC hearing. A federal election is a constant threat and this is a great way to be seen to be “standing up for Canadians”. When FFC is granted, he and the government can say: “Look, we did all we could, those folks down at the cable/broadcast/satellite/CRTC office are the ones to blame, so would you please direct your flaming e-mail there.”
But, the harder issues this new hearing will boil down to and confront, I predict, is re-regulating basic cable rates and being allowed to pay for only the channels you want: the much feared and often discredited a-la-carte model.
In fact, with the possibility of new money becoming available, as CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein asked for yesterday when announcing the new hearing, a new “alliance” of the usual suspects sprang up this morning, saying they will be the ones to look out for consumers.
While everyone talks money and the potential for their cable/satellite/telcoTV bills to go up by $5 to $10 a month and the affordability of it all, however, few yet are recognizing that the next item on the shouting agenda will be a-la-carte and the potential for a mandated skinny basic grouping of local, Canadian, stations.
If FFC happens – and it says here it is going to happen – as a consumer, I’m going to be angry. I live in Hamilton and truly, wouldn’t mind paying a few bucks for CHCH, my local station. But do I want to pay more for CTV Toronto or A Channel Barrie or CKCO Kitchener? No offense to the people I know who work there, but I don’t.
[As a side note, the fact I willingly pay for the CTV, Global and U.S. time-shifted western stations should say something about my willingness to purchase the convenience of viewing content when I want – and I’m continually bugged by the fact that I can’t get the major network content from my VOD provider. But je digress…]
Finally, consider immigrants who, in order to get the channel in the language they want, already have to pay more than three times as much as the channel costs just to get that one each month. Using the example which Korean channel All TV submitted to the Commission for 2009-411 (it’s a $14.95 a month pay service available on Rogers Cable) that customer already has to buy basic cable ($29.99/mo.), buy or rent a digital box (at least $5 a month), and pay the digital network access fee of $2.99/mo. – and that’s before he or she can subscribe to All TV.
And let’s be honest, many immigrants aren’t coming here rich and can’t readily afford the $5 to $10 more a month for local stations, nor can many Canadians (see below).
So as we head into a busy fall which will see our respective inboxes and comments pages fill with commentary and emotion as Canadians react to their TV system, its challenges and potential for change, remember that these are the viewers and customers who pay our salaries and LOVE TELEVISION.
Change is happening. Concessions will be made. And your customers feel crushed in the middle.
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“I support local televison. Don’t you think that we consummers are paying enough to watch TV? Now you want to pass on the cost to us???? Consummers pay an average of about 60$ monthly JUST to watch television??? And we all know that the people who own cable & satelite companies are not low-income or even middle income; they can afford the cost, not the average consummer. If I have to pay more for cable because of this, I will have no choice but to cut the cable. My sister & brothers said the same thing, among a number of friends. We are paying way too much as it is….and the telephone will be the next expense that we will cut…then the internet….and if everyone did this, and the mongrels that own these companies would have to live like the rest of us…..poor!
“I can’t appear….I have to work 6-7 days a week to pay bills…..like cable!”
Garry O’Donnell
St. Constant, Québec“i oppose that crtc is allowing the broadcasting companies i.e. bell rogers to charge an extra fee for local broadcasting as we already pay this fee in our cable bills and satellite bills. this is DOUBLE BILLING AND IS WRONG AND SHOULD BE DENIED.
Mary Coelho
Mississauga, Ontario“I object strongly to supporting private broadcasters through additional taxes. Local broadcasters should be allowed to fail. New ones will spring up.
Roy Murray
Toronto, Ontario“I received a notice that I should post my comment here with respect to the Cable company passing on the LPIF tax on to the customers. We already pay alot just to have basic cable and I being a Rogers customer cannot afford to have an increase such as the LPIF on my cable bill. In the email I received from CRTC it states that CRTC has no control over the cable companies passing this on to their customers, I find this hard to believe as CRTC is the one who created the tax to start with, they can regulate the rules around who pays the tax. Society has a whole would be directly impacted by this tax, and had no say in the implementation of the tax.”
Lisa Drover
East York, Ontario“I am in favour of local braodcasting however I also think that we should be allowed to watch programs that we want from the states also. I used to be able to get sewing shows such as Kayes Quilting Friends and discent shows such as The Waltons. We no longer get any sewing or quilting shows and the older shows are being taken of the air. I think that all thoes "reality shows" ( which are no way near reality!) should be taken of along with the Simpsons and the Family Guy. something is wrong with the programming when one can not get good educational TV or clean family viewing but can get crap like Reality, Simpsons etc. We pay to much for satilite TV as it is, so we should be able to get the programs we want on the TV. It is about time you people came awake and got ride of some of the Canadian programing if it is unacceptable.I do not see any thing wrong with watching programs from the states, as they are better!”
Linda Daley
Montague, PEI“I am opposed to any increase in taxes for satellite services. Do we not have enough tax on tax new? We are on a fixed income and find it very difficult to continue to deal with increases every few months. My initial reaction will be to discontinue my subscription or reduce my viewing package. For once think about the average person in these difficult economic times.
Daryl Calder
Vegreville, Alberta“I feel the cable and satilight companies should not be allowed to charge more by passing this ‘fee’ along. It increases an already ridiculous amount we are paying to get the few channels that we acually want to see, most of them are local tv.”
Andy Ormsby
Nepean, Ontario“I understand that the Cable company whats to pass along a"new sur-charge" coming from the CRTC. It is my understanding that this new sur-charge in to cover them paying for local programming, the cable company has for years been billing me for this programming and not paying the local stations. this is outragous . How dare they try and pass this along to me. The CRTC needs to put a stop to this and make cable companies pay for what they get and not slap another charge onto the consumerand blaming it on the CRTC. make them pay up and please don’t let them get away with sticking it to me.”
Wilfred Hatfield
Quispamsis, NB“It distresses me to read that you’re considering granting the wish of the local stations to have a "carriage fee". This is only going to make cable bills go higher as it will almost certainly be passed onto the consumer. In effect, we’ll be paying more and getting nothing more in return.
“If you do end up granting this, please consider the consumer and give us something in return for it – such as another US station on our cable, or a relaxing of the simsub rules that most Canadians HATE.
“It seems to be all take and no give – the CRTC seems to bow down to these big companies all the time and doesn’t really consider the paying customer. Most of your policies are out-dated (such as rediculous Linkage Rules) and should be changed. Here in the 21st Century we deserve a right to make more of a choice of what we want to watch, and not be forced to take something we don’t want in order to get what we do want.
“I thought with a Conservative government things would be more ‘market driven’ rather than ‘protectionist’. I’m very dissapointed.”
Ian Wallis
Scarborough, Ontario
