MP Champoux says CBC head still needs to explain the strategy for the channel’s distribution
By Ahmad Hathout
Following backlash, Radio-Canada said Friday it has asked Amazon to stop taking subscriptions for its ICI RDI on Prime Video until it can offer the 24-hour French-language news channel on its own ICI Tou.TV service.
“Sensitive to public concerns expressed following its announcement of the distribution agreement for ICI RDI on Prime Video, Radio-Canada has asked Prime Video to pause the channel’s signal for new subscriptions,” the public broadcaster said in a press release Friday afternoon. “This will allow the public broadcaster to finalize discussions with Canadian distributors to make ICI RDI’s signal available by subscription on ICI TOU.TV.”
The deal to bring the public broadcaster’s all-news channels, CBC News Network and ICI RDI, to Prime Video was less than a week old when, on Tuesday, a motion was passed during a Heritage committee study that would have summoned CBC/Radio-Canada President Marie-Philippe Bouchard to explain the deal that the motion’s author, Bloc Quebecois MP Martin Champoux, called “stunning.”
On Friday, Champoux told Cartt that while Radio-Canada is “listening to reason … we believe the CEO still needs to explain her strategic vision to parliamentarians, namely how she intends to make Radio-Canada’s specialty channel content available on existing Quebec and Canadian platforms.”
“Radio-Canada erred in choosing to use Amazon to broadcast RDI without the channel even being available on a local platform or on Tou.tv, for which Quebecers already pay,” Champoux added. “It was unacceptable to the Bloc Québécois that the public broadcaster prioritized the online distribution of RDI with a web giant hostile to measures protecting our media and cultural ecosystem and close to the American administration of Donald Trump.”
Radio-Canada’s statement on Friday includes much of what it already told us earlier in the week, including that the deal is not new in the business and that it is an attempt to capture an audience that is increasingly seeking digital options.
The Conservatives complained about the fact that the taxpayer-funded broadcaster was charging for the services — $5 per month — which is a concern also held by Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau.
“CBC/Radio-Canada is once again losing sight of its core mission as a public broadcaster,” Peladeau told us earlier this week. “Its deal with Amazon Prime Video speaks for itself — a public broadcaster that collects over one billion dollars in taxpayer funding is doubling down on advertising and subscription revenue.
“If the goal is truly to make RDI more accessible to Canadians, the answer is simple: make it free on CBC/Radio-Canada platforms that already exist. Instead, taxpayers are being asked to pay yet again for content they already fund.”
