OTTAWA — The CRTC today gave Stingray Digital Group a specialty service licence for Stingray Hits.
The music video channel operates currently as an exempt, national discretionary service, but having exceeded the exempt-service threshold of 200,000 subscribers for three consecutive months, Stingray applied in March 2019 for a broadcasting licence.
In its decision, the CRTC says it is licensing Stingray Hits as an English-language discretionary service, even though Stingray expressed its intention to eventually broadcast all programming other than music video programming in French. In its June 2019 response to the CRTC’s request for information, Stingray indicated Stingray Hits’ programming consists almost entirely of music videos, and the channel broadcasts approximately 60% English-language and 40% French-language music video programming. The company added it expected the proportion of languages to remain the same throughout the licence term and it didn’t have plans to make any changes.
“Given that the service broadcasts predominantly English-language programming, and that nothing in this application indicated that the language of the programming would necessarily change once the service is licensed, the Commission finds it appropriate to designate Stingray Hits as an English-language service,” the Commission writes in its decision.
As a condition of licence, in each broadcast year, Stingray must devote at least 10% of its previous year’s gross revenues to the acquisition of or investment in Canadian programming, the Commission says in its decision. This was the Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) requirement proposed by Stingray in its application, as a condition of its licence.
Stingray Hits’ broadcasting licence expires August 31, 2025.
