OTTAWA – No longer will DTH customers with a system at their home and their cottage be able to pay just a single bill.
The CRTC calls it account stacking, while others call it account splitting. Specialty service owners in Canada called it a way to siphon off revenue and want to be paid a wholesale fee for each address. Cable companies called it an unfair advantage. The DTH companies called it consumer-friendly since, because if people are watching TV at the cottage, they aren’t watching at home, too, and should be treated as a single account.
As noted in a prior column on Cartt.ca, the practice is subject to abuse, however.
Today, the CRTC put an end to the practice, telling the country’s two direct-to-home satellite companies, Shaw Communications’ Star Choice and Bell Canada’s Bell ExpressVu that specialty services are to receive a fee from each dwelling in which one of its systems is deployed. Star Choice, however, was the only one of the two actively promoting the practice.
"Having considered the record of the proceeding, the Commission determines that the practice described above is inconsistent with the objectives of the broadcasting policy for Canada as set out in the Broadcasting Act. In order to ensure that the practice ceases, the Commission is amending the applicable distribution and linkage rules, so that when a Class 1, Class 2 or direct-to-home (DTH) licensee provides a Canadian programming service to a single subscriber at two or more separate dwellings owned or occupied by the same subscriber, the licensee must remit a wholesale fee to the Canadian programming service on a per-dwelling basis," says the decision.
In a complaint to the CRTC filed December 2nd, 2005, Videotron was the first to complain about Star Choice, asking the CRTC to step in and put a stop to its account stacking, saying the Shaw Communications-owned DTH satellite company was giving itself an undue preference by allowing people to pay one subscription fee on more than one system, which the cableco said contravenes section 9 of the regs. The complaint itself was set aside as the Commission considered its policy, but now Star Choice and Videotron will be asked for new submissions as the complaint will now proceed.
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters also weighed in, saying each address must be counted as a separate subscriber and programming fees paid accordingly. "The CAB submits that the Commission’s definition of ‘subscriber’ reflects the fundamental criterion that each separate dwelling to which a BDU provides service denotes a unique subscriber, irrespective of the ownership of the dwelling," said the CAB’s submission on the proceeding.
It’s not known at this time how many customers this will affect or what kind of windfall specialty services can expect from the decision, however, Star Choice told the hearing earlier this year that the practice is not widespread.
But, "notwithstanding that the practice does not appear to be widespread at this time, the Commission finds that, based on the record of this proceeding, the practice could have significant negative effects on broadcasters and on the broadcasting system in general, especially if it were to be adopted on a wider basis," reads the Commission’s decision.
– Greg O’Brien
