Chair says 9(1)(h) may not go to anyone
GATINEAU – Sometimes the headline for a CRTC hearing day comes mid-morning, or maybe late afternoon during a good Q&A session between an applicant and a commissioner which puts a tight focus on the issues at play.
On Monday, however, that headline came in the first five minutes during CRTC chairman Ian Scott’s short opening speech. While we have surmised here that granting a mandatory carriage licence to a national, multilingual and multi-ethnic television service was a foregone conclusion – and that the only question is which of the eight applicants will get it – Scott cautioned everyone immediately at the start of the hearing that assumption is not so.
“Mandatory distribution is a privilege reserved for television services that provide an exceptional contribution to the broadcasting system and to achieving the policy objectives of the Broadcasting Act,” he said. “Over the next four days, we will examine whether the proposed services would contribute to the achievement of these goals.
“To that end, the applicants are required to demonstrate how their proposed services would meet the criteria for mandatory distribution… Furthermore, each applicant will have to clearly demonstrate how its proposed service would fulfill other criteria, including how it would: operate under a diverse governance structure; serve a broadly representative set of minority linguistic and cultural communities, including newcomers to Canada; be relevant to all Canadians across the country; and present news and information programming in multiple languages from a Canadian perspective, including local, regional and national news and information,” he explained.
Next, “based on this information and the evaluation of the applications in the context of these criteria, the Commission will then decide whether any of the proposed services should receive a licence and have the privilege of receiving mandatory distribution.” (that’s our emphasis there)
So it’s on the applicants to prove just how special they are to warrant must-carry status under section 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act and if they don’t, no one will get the licence.
On Monday the incumbent, Rogers Media, led off the proceedings telling the Commission panel of Scott, vice-chair broadcasting Caroline Simard and vice-chair telecom Christianne Laizner just how specially they have been running OMNI as a broadcast network, a regional specialty service and how much more special they plan to be going forward.
Four national feeds (something also promised by Ethnic Channels Group with their Voices application) anchored by local and national news, more original and first run programming, higher Canadian content and third language commitments than before, all paid for by a boost in its wholesale rate to 19-cents per subscriber per month (up from 12-cents now), which would rise to 21-cents over a five year licence term.
“No other applicant in this proceeding has any experience producing local and national news specific for ethnic and third-language audiences.” – Manuel Fonseca, OMNI
Plus, Rogers has the experience and knows how to do all of this, said their executives. “No other applicant in this proceeding has any experience producing local and national news specific for ethnic and third-language audiences,” said Manual Fonseca, OMNI’s general manager.
Experience, especially with something that is as defective as the OMNI model shouldn’t matter all that much, said ECG’s CEO Slava Levin during the company’s presentation of Voices, which would offer a ton of ethnic programming and feature a technical solution that would make all of its programming simultaneously accessible to up to 25 languages by the end of its license term.
“The traditional, scheduled, one-language-at-a-time, linear ethnic service from the 1980s and 90s is an old model, and that model is broken,” said Levin. “I have no doubt that most of you have tried Netflix and seen the range of foreign, third-language content available to audiences. Most of that content comes with multiple language soundtracks and all of it is available, simultaneously, at the push of a button. This is what consumers want and, increasingly, this is what they expect.”
The special solution offered by ECG, delivering 10 (to start, rising to 25) different language audio streams with one video channel, can be deployed using existing technology currently in use by Canadian BDUs. The BDU objections that what ECG proposes is impossible, boils down to the fact they just don’t want to do it, said Levin.
“This programming approach and technology is already well upon us in the global TV environment. Canada needs to keep pace.” – Hari Srinivas, ECG
“Ideally, every TV viewer should be able to access television content in their own language. This programming approach and technology is already well upon us in the global TV environment. Canada needs to keep pace,” added Hari Srinivas, president of ECG, saying this solution (coupled with ECG’s significant Canadian content commitments 75% Cancon, 85% in prime time, 90% ethnic programming) would bring the TV channel as close to an on-demand, in-language experience as possible for the over seven million Canadians who speak a language other than English and French.
Later in the presentation, Srinivas pointed out to commissioners that their solution is not untried technology and that Indian broadcaster Sony used multiple language audio feeds to serve 13 languages on one video channel during the last World Cup.
Amber Broadcasting (pronounced “umber”, meaning “sky” in Punjabi and Hindi) got the band back together for its pitch for Amber News Network (which would be 100% ethnic and 100% news). Six different former Rogers and OMNI executives have helped the company, to this point a single-radio-station license holder helmed by president Herkiranjeet Kaur Mann and general manager Tejinder Singh Saini.
“This sector of the broadcasting system is the first to be sacrificed among the competing priorities of broadcasters who own multiple services with differing business models.” – Madeline Ziniak, Amber Broadcasting
What Rogers is doing now with OMNI is no longer adequate partially because it is a large company with far more lucrative things on its plate than a break-even ethnic TV service. “This sector of the broadcasting system is the first to be sacrificed among the competing priorities of broadcasters who own multiple services with differing business models. These models have not kept pace with the growing need and evolution of ethnocultural community, communication and information needs,” said Madeline Ziniak, ANN board member and former national vice-president of OMNI Television.
While the commission panel pressed ANN on its lack of infrastructure, financial models and operational experience (despite the 200-plus years of TV experience on the panel), Ziniak was unbowed, saying Amber, as a newcomer, could create a special must carry,
“It’s time for a fresh start. It’s time for fresh, entrepreneurial eyes. It’s time for a fresh focus.”
The hearing continues Tuesday morning with Bell Media and its application up first.
