Feds demanded CRTC take another look
GATINEAU – Back on May 15, 2017, the CRTC issued a series of decisions to renew licences for the television services of large English- and French-language private ownership groups (Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, Rogers Media, Groupe V and Quebecor Media).
These outlined new conditions of license which allowed, among other things, broadcasters to spread their Cancon spending collectively over all of their channels, rather than counting it brand by brand. It also standardized a Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) rate of 30% of revenues for each large broadcaster. The Commission also set a new spending requirement for locally reflective news expenditures (LNE) of 11% of the previous year's revenue for local programming.
On August 14, 2017, the Governor in Council, after facing a loud backlash from a number of creative groups, referred back to the CRTC certain aspects of the renewal decisions for reconsideration. Mostly, creatives and others were angry about lowered levels of spending on programs of national interest (PNI – or Canadian dramas, documentaries and awards shows) and the decisions were primarily returned to the Commission because of that issue. The creative groups and unions had estimated that the changes would cause a decrease in spending on PNI of over $900 million over the broadcasters’ five-year license terms.
Nineteen groups demanded then-Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly overturn the decision and she had the Governor-in-Council return it to the Commission for a review. The regulator has been considering this decision since the last submission deadline in February.
The broadcasters used the reconsideration as an opportunity to submit new financial data and other requests, too. Bell Media, for example, asked for permission to shut down five additional rural OTA TV transmission towers and offered to raise its PNI spending floor from 5% to 6%. In exchange for that concession, it asked that rules that call for 75% of that PNI money being spent with independent producers to be trimmed to 50%. Essentially, they want to own more content outright.
We’ll have a decision on this contentious issue before Friday.
