GATINEAU – We heard from a good source yesterday that a trial balloon on the fee-for-carriage issue is orbiting Parliament Hill these days.
The message tied to that figurative balloon apparently wonders "what if" the CBC were the only conventional broadcaster to get a fee for carriage from all Canadian BDUs. In exchange for that though, CBC Television would drop all advertising. The Corp. earned $328 million in the 2007 broadcast year in ad dollars on conventional TV, according to its annual report.
The hope, continues the line of thinking, would be that all that revenue would find a home among the private broadcasters, making any push towards a new cable and satellite fee for the likes of CTV and Global unnecessary.
(We think, instead, that much of the dough spent with CBC would probably find its way to a multitude of other platforms and not so much to other private Canadian broadcasters.)
The cost to Canadians to replace that revenue would be, roughly $2.75 per TV household per month.
The other cost? With no ads, Hockey Night In Canada’s Coach’s Corner would be several minutes longer, subjecting the nation to Don Cherry’s bombast and questionable taste in fashion for even more sometimes excruciating minutes on Saturday nights…
We’ll have to stay tuned to see if this trial balloon stays afloat or is popped.
– Greg O’Brien
