LET’S TALK TV: Should Yankee go home? The changing role of U.S. channels in the Canadian broadcasting system

By Perry Hoffman

GATINEAU - The place, and prominence, of American specialty networks in Canadian television programming packages may soon be changing as the CRTC grapples with the part that U.S. discretionary services play in our rapidly changing broadcast environment.When the Commission launched the third phase of Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians last April, it also proposed a potential new approach to licensing foreign services for carriage in Canada. That proposal suggested a simple test: a non-Canadian service would be authorized for carriage and distribution unless it would have “an undue negative impact” on the Canadian TV system. Services that held program...