GATINEAU – The CRTC today invited Canadians “to share their opinions on applications received to operate a multilingual, multi-ethnic channel with mandatory distribution across Canada.”
In May of last year, the Commission approved a request by Rogers Media to turn its struggling OMNI local OTA stations into regional, must carry specialty channels, complete with a subscriber fee of $0.12 per subscriber per month.
The Commission granted OMNI that status under the provisions of section 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act (Rogers had all but said it would close the multilingual, multi-ethnic OMNI stations without that Commission decision), but only for three years. It also said at the same time that it would open up a competitive process to ask others to make proposals for that coveted must-carry TV slot. There is no guarantee Rogers will keep the license.
Essentially, the Commission and the politicos in Ottawa want to keep a Canadian multilingual, multi-ethnic channel with national, regional and local news and information shows produced from a Canadian point of view available to as many Canadians as possible.
The CRTC received eight applications which were made public today that met the pre-established criteria to compete for the 9(1)(h) license and the winner will benefit from mandatory distribution on the basic television service to every Canadian subscription TV household as of 2020.
Canadians who want to have their say on this may submit their comments on the applications before May 17, 2018 on the Commission web site.
The Regulator will hold a public hearing to evaluate the applications starting October 15, 2018.
