GATINEAU – The messages Rogers Communications executives were trying to get across to CRTC commissioners this morning were obscured a little by an unexpected source: company founder Ted Rogers.
Rogers strayed a little from the themes the others on his panel were trying to get across to Commissioners Michel Morin. Ron Williams, Len Katz, Michel Arpin, Rita Cugini and chairman Konrad von Finckenstein on the opening of day one of the hearings into the policies governing broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services in Canada.
Rogers executives Ken Engelhart and Phil Lind took the lead, but with Canada’s pre-eminent cable guy in attendance, it was hard not to focus on the leader of the big red machine.
While some reports claimed Rogers was disagreeing with his own executives, we’d chalk it up to “Ted being Ted,” as folks at RCI are wont to say sometimes. We don’t think he was disagreeing as much as he was taking the message and walking it down memory lane, then giving it his own personal spin.
Rogers noted he started out as a broadcaster (in FM radio, with CHFI) and “I have it in my bones.”
For example, he addressed his company’s submission on granting further access to foreign services into the Canadian market (RCI proposed a viability test where new channels would only be kept out if they looked to threaten the viability of a Canadian channel).
He said the test would rarely be used, if the Commission did adopt it and if additional American channels did come in, "that would be harmful to the system… maybe some of my cable colleagues disagree, but perhaps they didn’t start out as a broadcaster like I did."
– Greg O’Brien
