ABOUT A WEEK before the next Commission’s September 29th inquiry into the state of the broadcast industry, whomever the regulator dares send to the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance annual gathering will be sure to get an earful.
The members of the CCSA are Canada’s smaller, but fiercely independent, cable operators and when they meet on September 20-22 for Connect 2009 at the White Oaks Resort in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ont., you can bet any thought of paying a fee for carriage to conventional broadcasters won’t be warmly received, to say the least.
The group has worked hard to earn a small systems exemption (for systems with fewer than 20,000 subs) from the Commission under the newest BDU regs, but the details of exactly what that will mean have yet to be released. One wonders if any new negotiated fee-for-carriage of local broadcasters (the direction the CRTC seems to be headed, as we’ve reported) will be covered under that exemption.
“We have participated in a lot of regulatory matters over the last year,” noted CCSA president and CEO Alyson Townsend in a recent interview with Cartt.ca. “The small systems exemption is something near and dear to our heart. We still haven’t seen exactly what that means, but I suspect by the time that we get to the AGM that we will know what that is.”
The CCSA’s annual gathering has long been referred to as the group’s AGM, which will also happen again this year, of course. But the independent cable company buying group has re-branded it as “Connect 2009: Summit For Independent Communications”. The conference will also feature its popular tabletop trade show, now called “Click”.
In the big battles the CRTC adjudicates between multi-billion-dollar companies, the CCSA members often feel ignored – or worried that their companies are so small, and in some cases, remote, that their particular challenges won’t properly be heard or recognized when decisions are made.
It’s one of the reasons the organization created a regulatory arm in 2006 when the Canadian Cable Television Association disbanded.
“There are a lot of small communities that really are not on the radar, and we can reach out to those companies very quickly and provide that information to the Commission so they have an idea of the areas – the local areas that they’re talking about,” she added.
Take the transition to digital, over-the-air TV transmission, for example. The Regulator said last week that only communities with populations of 300,000-plus will have to erect new transmitters. The rest will be delivered to locals by other means (cable, satellite and telco TV). But, since only a few CCSA member companies serve communities with populations that large, the Alliance’s members will be relied upon to get the newly digital signals out.
“We are watching the digital transition, and we expect once again to be able to play a role with the Commission,” said Townsend.
And, when it comes to local TV, many CCSA members think they can provide a viable local news option on their own (especially if some local stations are closed as threatened) – if allowed to tap into additional revenue, like perhaps the local programming improvement fund, or local TV advertising.
“Our members believe that they can provide an alternative to local programming,” said Townsend, “and that with the appropriate funding, such as (LPIF) that if the networks are pulling out of those communities – well, not if; they are – that that is a role that we can fill, so it ties all nicely together, I think, if they have access to some funding.
“With advertising or with any fund that might be set up… talk about local. You can’t get more local than our members.”
With more TV, broadband and VOIP operators having added, in the midst of adding – or thinking about adding – a fourth leg to their bundle in wireless, this is something on the CCSA’s front burner, too, added Townsend. While a couple of its members bid for spectrum during 2008’s advanced wireless spectrum auction, none actually had winning bids in the end. But that just means the CCSA has to do a deal – which is the organization’s raison d’etre.
“We are exploring (wireless) from a CCSA point of view,” said Townsend. “We’re meeting with incumbents, we’re meeting with the new entrants, and we are very interested in putting together a deal that could be offered by CCSA members.”
While there has been no pen put to paper as yet, these incumbent cablecos – most of whom offer high speed Internet – don’t want to get left behind as their competitors continue to push a four-legged bundle while they have just three.
“We have been meeting, but so far, it’s just in the introductory phase to find out what would a deal look like,” she noted. “What are the requirements for a member company? From a technical perspective, who can reach the most member companies? Who can reach all of the member companies? What would the business plan look like?
“I would say that we’re studying the issue right now rather than making any concrete plans, but we’re studying it in order to be able to make reasonable concrete plans.”
To register for the CCSA’s Connect 2009 (complete with seminars, trade show, golf tournament or wine tour), click here to go to the CCSA web site.
