OTTAWA – The CRTC has renewed the broadcast licence for the national discretionary services known as Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC), as well as their mandatory distribution order.
A federally incorporated, not-for-profit company owned by companies in the cable television industry, CPAC Inc. operates licensed public affairs programming services in English and in French. These services are complementary to the exempt programming services it also operates, which provide coverage of the proceedings of the House of Commons and of the committees of the House and Senate.
The Commission also agreed to CPAC’s request to increase its regulated per subscriber monthly wholesale rate from $0.12 to $0.13. CPAC said that the rate increase would generate additional revenues for the services of $6 million over the next licence term, at an average of $15.7 million per year, which it said “would be sufficient to maintain CPAC’s current operating level in the next licence term.”
Subject to the approval of its request for mandatory distribution, CPAC added that it would accept a condition of licence requiring that it file an annual report relating to Canadian programming expenditure (CPE). It proposed to spend a minimum of 53% of its previous year’s revenues on Canadian programming over the next licence term, which was also approved by the CRTC.
“CPAC Inc.’s services are the only Canadian television services dedicated primarily to providing Parliamentary coverage and related in-depth public affairs content in both official languages”, reads the decision. “The programming they provide would not otherwise be available in the Canadian broadcasting system. In the Commission’s view, it is important that these unique services continue to be available to all Canadians, consistent with the objectives of the Canadian broadcasting policy.”
CPAC’s licence was renewed for five years, from September 1, 2018 through August 31, 2023.
More renewals
Other TV broadcast licences that were renewed by the CRTC on Wednesday include:
– From Wild TV Inc. for the national English-language discretionary service Wild TV, from September 1, 2018 to August 31, 2023; and
– From New Tang Dynasty Television (Canada) for the national, general interest third-language ethnic Category B service NTD Television, from September 1, 2018 to August 31, 2022.
