TORONTO – Supporters of satellite radio in Canada held a large news conference in Toronto today to repeat their mantra that the services licensed by the CRTC will benefit established and emerging Canadian artists, rural Canadian listeners, and francophone culture outside of Quebec.
Launching the approved Canadian services — SIRIUS Canada and Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR) — will also stem the tide of Canadians who subscribe to illegal U.S. services, the pair argued.
“Canada needs a legitimate antidote to the quickly growing grey market,” said Kevin Shea, SIRIUS Canada president and CEO, citing an estimate that 100,000 Canadians have grey market satellite radio receivers and subscriptions.
The supporters came together in light of published reports that the federal Liberals may require the CRTC to rethink the licensing of SIRIUS and CSR over concerns they aren’t required to have enough Canadian and French-language channels.
The terrestrial-based service owned by CHUM was granted a licence to operate entirely Canadian channels. It has said it will not launch its service unless the satellite services are required to dramatically increase their Cancon.
CHUM was not part of today’s news conference. In reaction to it, Peter Miller, CHUM’s Vice President of Planning and Regulatory Affairs, said the arguments were largely old hat. “This is an assault on the whole Cancon regime.” The satellite services stated that the CRTC’s requirement to have at least one Canadian-produced channel for every nine foreign ones, amounting to 10% Canadian content for “North American” services, is a lot. But “there is nothing in the Broadcasting Act about North American platforms,” Miller told www.cartt.ca.
“It is clear that the commission has overstepped its boundaries in licensing these guys with this 10% Cancon level,” Miller said in an interview.
“The CRTC did the right thing in granting these licenses with specific Canadian content requirements,” Shea said in the news conference. “It is fulfilling its mandate to bring new services and new technologies to Canada and better yet Canadian artists will now get a presence on this new technology that they may not have had through the grey market.”
Another benefit to Canadians, no matter where they live, is the wider choice of programming that the two satellite services would offer, said John Bitove, CSR chairman and CEO.
“Canadian artists will also benefit through the emergence of an additional royalty revenue stream, ongoing investment in Canadian talent development and access to more than 300 million potential subscribers in North America,” Bitove said. The two services pledged to invest $57 million in Canadian talent development initiatives split evenly between English and French-language artists.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to unite francophone culture continent-wide," said Bitove. “Whether you live in French-speaking rural Manitoba, Eastern Ontario, New Brunswick or anywhere in Canada or the U.S., you will now be able to receive music, information and comedy in French.”
Automakers were also on hand to appeal to the feds to leave the Canadian licences as they were approved by the commission in June. “New vehicles in the U.S. have come equipped with satellite radio for some time now,” said David Paterson, vice president of General Motors of Canada Ltd. “Our Canadian customers are asking dealers for this great service. Unless we act quickly, we will miss the opportunity to outfit new models with this technology. Satellite radio is not going away.”
