OTTAWA – That’s the question the legal eagles at Telus are wrestling with this week.
Last week’s mobile TV exemption order made it clear that wireless carriers are not to offer any TV channels – including conventional broadcasters – on its mobile television lineups, without the broadcasters’ prior permission.
This worries Telus vice-president, wireless, broadband and content policy, Michael Hennessy.
"They’ve essentially given a retransmission consent right to over-the-air broadcasters, which lies at the heart of the over-the-air hearing" held last November, he told Cartt.ca this week.
Retransmission consent has been consistently fought by distributors such as cable, satellite and telco TV carriers like Telus. In fact, Telus made the case during the hearing that the CRTC does not have the jurisdiction to create such a thing. Such a step is not far away from no consent without a carriage fee, which was at the heart of the CRTC TV Policy Review hearing.
"Our position, and the position shared by many, is that the Commission doesn’t have the jurisdiction to create a retransmission consent regime," explained Hennessy.
"It gives them the right to say consent may only be granted for a fee and that’s very troubling. We don’t know whether that’s two files that have been dealt with on separate tracks (at the Commission) and people haven’t made the connection to the bigger hearing… they seem to have mixed up the regimes.
"We may be over-worrying on this one, but it does raise an interesting question," he added.
Hennessy also worries about just what, exactly, point-to-point mobile TV means (the other restriction on the exemption) and that the Commission was trying to write a new rule that will take into account future technologies.
As for the broadcasters, they like the decision.
“We’re pleased that the Commission has taken a more cautious approach to mobile television, as we recommended," said Canadian Association of Broadcasters CEO Glenn O’Farrell. "They agreed with most of our main arguments in settling on a more restricted exemption order than they had originally proposed.”
– Greg O’Brien
