OTTAWA – There’s a regulatory skirmish crawling through the CRTC right now over who gets to program for the diaper and rattle set (think Baby Einstein-type of shows and not as old as Dora the Explorer).
While the potential new viewers spend a lot of time asleep or with their fingers up their noses, pondering the mystery of their blankie, the positions drawn by the parties are as old as Canadian TV regulation. One side (usually a cable company) wants a foreign channel in. The other (usually a programmer) wants it kept out so it can launch its own service in the same niche.
In this case, the first side is Rogers Cable and Baby TV. In February, the Canadian MSO filed an application to the Commission to try and get the foreign channel which serves viewers aged three and under added to the eligible satellite list for digital distribution here (Rogers has already added the channel’s content to its video on demand platform). The Commission made the application public March 30th.
On the other side is new Canadian broadcast company High Fidelity HDTV (which is led by several veteran broadcasters, including Ken Murphy) which owns and operates all-HD channels Oasis HD and Treasure HD, and will be launching Rush HD and Equator HD in September. It wants a license for BabyHD and it wants the Commission to deny Rogers’ request to add Baby TV for Canadian distribution.
HiFi submitted its newborn application for the commercial-free digital category two channel to the Commission on April 5th, a week after the Rogers request was gazetted.
This fact trumps the HiFi application altogether, says the MSO. The Rogers application must be judged on the existing channels in the market at the date of application, so when the Commission is making its decision on Baby TV is must not consider BabyHD at all – which is a copy of the Baby TV service anyway – says the Rogers submission to the CRTC.
"At the time the Baby TV Request was filed, there was no existing Canadian service, nor any approved but unlaunched Canadian service, that targeted infants and toddlers under three years of age. This is still the case," says the Rogers intervention. "… In accordance with the Commission’s stated objectives of streamlining the application process and issuing decisions in a timely manner, we respectfully submit that the Commission review the Baby TV Request based on the policies that pertain to the addition of non-Canadian services to the Digital Lists and should not delay making this valuable service available to Canadian viewers in order to consider the BabyHD Application."
"Should the Commission decide to approve High Fidelity’s service, we are concerned that it may then act as a barrier to the Commission approving the Baby TV Request, even though our application was filed prior to High Fidelity’s application," continues the August 17th letter from Rogers Cable’s vice-president, regulatory, Pamela Dinsmore. "If this were to occur, it would be unfair to Baby TV and Rogers, who discussed distribution of the service in Canada and filed the Baby TV request in a timely manner and according to the Commission’s policies and regulations."
Further, adds the Rogers infant intervention, "High Fidelity has taken advantage of the public process to develop a new Canadian service within the context of the existing international Baby TV service. To the extent that BabyHD may have been modeled on this successful service, it should not then be capable of acting as a barrier to the introduction of Baby TV in Canada."
Not so, says HiFi’s reply to the intervention, dated August 27th. BabyHD is not a copy of Baby TV. It’s in high definition, first of all, and will have a number of Canadian babies on the air, which is the key selling point, as is outlined in our Broadcasting Act. We need to tell Canadian stories to mini-Canucks as soon as possible, HiFi says. "The Applicant would add that it is also important that the first exposures to television that Canadian babies and toddlers have should be exposures that educate and entertain them in a way that only a Canadian programming service will do," reads its reply letter from HiFi senior vice-president David Patterson.
As for the fact Rogers got their application in first, Patterson refers to that as "a minor procedural point."
As for the inference that BabyHD is a higher definition duplicate of Baby TV, "…Rogers questioned whether the Applicant may have modeled BabyHD on the Baby TV service," adds the HiFi reply. "… The applicant has not modeled its service on Baby TV."
So, asks HiFi, does the CRTC want to squabble over Rogers’ technical, bureaucratic points, or do what’s best for Canadian babies and their parents?
"The Applicant believes that Rogers’ intention is to focus on procedure, rather than have the Commission do the right thing," says the HiFi response. "Rogers would have the Commission act blindly in what is a choice that the Commission must make: For Canadians, will it be BabyHD or Baby TV?"
And if it’s Baby TV that gets adopted, BabyHD won’t launch, writes Patterson. "… (I)f the Rogers Request is approved, then the Applicant’s plan to launch BabyHD will have to be aborted."
