OTTAWA – Telus has not successfully addressed concerns expressed by the CRTC in its 2018 renewal of the company’s regional licences for its terrestrial broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) serving locations in Alberta and British Columbia, a letter from the Commission to Telus’ director of regulatory affairs, Lecia Simpson, says.
In its 2018 decision, the CRTC expressed concern the company’s “community television model did not allow for a significant amount or a wide variety of locally produced and reflective programming to be produced by a range of individuals within a community,” the letter, published earlier this week on the CRTC’s website, says.
“As part of its decision, the Commission indicated that it would closely monitor the way that TELUS funds and produces programming that qualifies as local expression.”
In February 2021, CRTC staff began a process of verifying the operations of the on-demand community programming services offered by Telus’ relevant BDUs.
Telus identified several errors it made in its annual return filings to the CRTC when it prepared its responses to requests for information from Commission staff as part of this process. This included finding programs that were misattributed to the wrong undertaking, expenses that were miscategorized and sponsorship revenues that were accounted for as program expenses.
The CRTC’s letter this week indicates “the Commission still has some concerns with the multiple inconsistencies in the reporting and the fact that what progress was made did not appear until the most recent broadcast year and occurred mostly in the larger BDU service areas.”
The Commission acknowledges Telus did announce measures it would implement to address some of the remaining issues. However, the CRTC also determined a subsequent examination would be necessary and indicated it would be conducted as part of Telus’s next licence renewal. (Telus’ regional licences for its terrestrial BDUs in various locations in Alberta and B.C. expire Aug. 31, 2023.)
In this week’s letter, the CRTC also noted it denied Telus’ request to transfer eligible local expression contributions from Vancouver to Edmonton, and as such, found the company’s Vancouver BDU in non-compliance with a condition of licence, which sets out an expectation of a minimum 4.7% contribution to Canadian programming, for the 2019-2020 broadcast year.
Telus did not respond to Cartt.ca’s request for comment by deadline.
For the full letter, please click here.
