By Ahmad Hathout
Major foreign streamers are asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review the CRTC’s decision to force them to disclose certain financial information that the regulator says is in the public interest.
The Canadian affiliate of the Motion Picture Association (MPAC) and its members, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Paramount+, are arguing that, by declaring certain financial information “public,” the CRTC is effectively pre-empting their ability to designate certain competitively sensitive information as confidential as is their right under section 25.3 of the Broadcasting Act, which was amended by the Online Streaming Act that brought these streamers under regulation.
“Parliament circumscribed the CRTC’s ability to disclosed information submitted to it in confidence by adding s. 25.3 to the Broadcasting Act,” which “requires the CRTC to perform several mandatory steps, absent which it cannot disclose designated confidential information,” the streamers say in their leave to appeal application filed Thursday.
“The CRTC’s decision is at odds with the requirements of the law, undermines Parliament’s intent, and it is inconsistent with at least five other CRTC decisions issued over the past three years in which the CRTC acknowledged the competitive harm that would result from publicly disclosing this confidential information,” the MPAC said in a statement.
The Online Streaming Act also added provisions related to the collection of information that the commission “considers necessary for the administration” of the law, including financial or commercial information and information related to expenditures.
The CRTC exercised that by ordering online undertakings that make $25 million or more in revenue to submit annual production reports “to provide a more fulsome picture of the diversity of people represented in that system” and to disclose their annual Canadian programming expenditures (CPE), other contributions, and their total annual Canadian gross broadcasting revenues minus excluded revenues.
The regulator said it intends to publish this information.
“Certain online undertakings have expressed concerns that data disclosure could affect their level of competitiveness in the market,” the CRTC acknowledged in its November decision on what makes programming “Canadian.”
“In the Commission’s view, it is unlikely that any harm resulting from disclosure of that data would outweigh the public interest, given the relatively large size of the online undertakings whose information is intended to be made public and their associated large impact on the Canadian broadcasting system.”
But the streamers dispute this wisdom.
“The CRTC determined that it would disclose the Financial Data because it is always in the public interest to do so, because it ‘fosters transparency’ and ‘taking into account existing practices for publication of traditional undertakings’ data and information,’” the leave filing says. “The CRTC did not contemplate any further consideration on a case-by-case basis as Financial Data, and confidentiality designations are filed in the future.”
The streamers say this is contrary to a 2024 decision it made to allow the undertakings to file their base contribution amounts – to be paid out to Canadian content funds – with a third party administrator “that ensured that each foreign online undertaking’s specific financial information remains confidential,” the leave application notes.
“The [November] Decision provides no explanation for why the CRTC’s interpretation of the s. 25.3 test changed between 2024 and 2025.”
The streamers are asking the court to set aside the CRTC’s determination on this matter in its November decision.
Screenshot via MPAC website
