GATINEAU – Licensing a new network based on the fact that it is promising to air its content in high definition is not a good enough reason to add to an already crowded TV market, interveners told the CRTC today during its hearing into licensing a pair of new HDTV broadcasters.
“Ultimately, HD is just a technical format,” said Rael Merson, president and CEO of Rogers Broadcasting, who noted that most Canadian broadcasters are offering many hours of high definition content already. “It is quality content, not technology that drives demand,” added Marie Griffiths of intervener CHCR.
Entrepreneur John Bitove – chairman and founder of XM Canada and the head of Prizm Foods, owner of hundreds of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants in Canada – has asked for a national license for a new all-HD network with transmitters in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. (YES TV has also applied for an OTA HD license for Toronto for a station geared totally towards youth, which was also heard this week.)
Bitove’s proposed new network, according to the application, would be a cable must-carry on digital – and analog, too – retaining the simultaneous substitution rights enjoyed by local broadcasters when they air U.S. programming. Given the $260 million it plans to spend on Canadian programming over its license term, Bitove said such carriage is a necessity.
The Canadian Film and Television Producers Association offered its conditional support for the new channel and hailed it “as a new door to knock on.”
But according to Rogers Cable’s vice-president, television, Dave Purdy, who appeared at the hearing, cable companies like Rogers “are facing a serious bandwidth crunch” in this current transitional period from analog to digital and do not want to be forced to add more must-carries. “Granting mandatory analog carriage to digital services would be a troubling step backwards,” he said.
And, with low-powered transmitters and little local programming, HDTV Networks promise of free HD for the masses is disingenuous, added Merson. The application “fails to meet the standards of an over the air license,” he said. Also, Bitove’s promise not to pursue local advertising, in order to spare a revenue hit on local broadcasters also rings hollow, since, “as everyone knows, most television advertising is national,” said Merson.
Both Rogers and CTVglobemedia agreed that what HDTV Networks is asking for would mean the Commission would be creating a new class of license – in essence a national superstation.
“They’re looking for a Vancouver superstation with priority carriage,” added CTVglobemedia’s SVP revenue management, Brian McClusky.
Bitove disagreed with those assumptions, of course, saying the application is not for a new class of license and could be accommodated under existing policy. He noted that neither he nor YES are Canadian Association of Broadcasters members and that everything that group does “seems to protect the club.”
However, he also conceded that HDTV Networks would modify its programming and business plan to accommodate two hours per week per market of local programming, accept it as a condition of license – and that it would be different than what is out there now.
“Consolidation has led to a cookie-cutter approach to programming,” added Bitove.
