OTTAWA – While the Commission has been prepared to consider applications for competitive news specialty services since last year, it is unmoved when it comes to considering them as a new category 1 must-carry licenses.
That’s what Quebecor Media was told earlier this month by the CRTC in a letter saying the company’s application for a category 1 cable channel license for Sun TV News will not go forward in Gatineau. As Cartt.ca noted when QMI made the very public announcement of the new news channel it plans to launch in January, the CRTC had already said in March it won’t consider any new category 1 applications until the fall of 2011. And it may not consider any at all, even then.
Category 1 channels must be carried and offered to customers by any Canadian digital carrier and each comes with its own CRTC-set wholesale fee.
Quebecor proposed something unprecedented, however, that it hoped would help it with the Regulator: It would hand back its conventional off-air Toronto TV license (with retransmitters covering from London to Ottawa) which is currently branded SunTV in exchange for a category 1 specialty designation (cat 1s will be called Category A licenses come September of 2011).
Because it’s a local OTA, SunTV is a must carry across Southern Ontario, but does not, of course, benefit from any wholesale fees.
In his July 5 letter to QMI, CRTC director general of TV policy and applications Peter Foster pointed out that the channel’s not all that new, and there are a couple of ways forward for the company’s news channel (although neither are as lucrative as a category 1 license would be).
“In your application, you state that the proposed service would be unlike the all-news channels already licensed; that it will be ‘an Information & Analysis channel, a completely new genre in Canada,’ writes Foster. “It is noted, however, that news and analysis are sub-categories of the information programming category, and that in your proposal, news would be broadcast throughout the day.
“…(I)t would appear to be a relatively straight-forward process for your proposal to be amended to be an application for a licence to operate a competitive news service, which could be considered without delay,” wrote Foster, referring to a category 2 license (not a must-offer for carriers) the company could get easily and quickly.
“Alternatively, there would appear to be no regulatory provisions that prevent the existing SUN TV station (CKXT-TV/CKXT-DT) from being operated as an information television service. In fact, such a programming approach could be implemented without regulatory approval by the Commission.
“Should you, however, insist that your application be considered as a Category A application, you will have to wait until after October 2011 when the appropriateness of licensing new Category A or revisiting existing Category A services will be considered,” added Foster.
No word yet on Quebecor Media’s response.
– Greg O’Brien
