GATINEAU – When rookie CRTC commissioner Michel Morin first unveiled his possible points plan for specialty channels during last month’s BDU and specialty policy hearing, many were left scratching their heads.
But, as he put more meat on the bones of his idea, as it were, as the hearing progressed, stakeholders began to mull it over and some were taking it pretty seriously. In fact, the Commission asked for comments from stakeholders to address it specifically.
However, upon further review, most have lauded Morin’s intentions – more Canadian content to more Canadians – but dismissed his idea.
Morin proposed a scheme where specialty channels would earn a certain level of points by adding their Canadian programming expenditures to their required level of Canadian content and then subtracting the channels’ wholesale rates. Those channels hitting a certain point threshold would receive mandatory carriage on the basic cable and satellite TV lineups.
Bell Canada likely exposed the idea most succinctly in its final written submission to the CRTC on Thursday when it pointed out a holiday favourite channel might score the most points under Morin’s proposal.
“(S)uch a blanket test would certainly cause multiple problems,” reads Bell’s submission when it addressed the Morin proposal. “This test implies that all services can be defined in simple terms as a function of Canadian content ratios. However, consider for example, the popular Yule Log program, often provided on late-night television or free on PPV during the holiday season.”
The “programming” is that of a crackling fire and Christmas music, a version of which many distributors carry every Christmas season.
“Under the proposed test,” writes Bell, “as long as the production was 100% Canadian, it could qualify as a compulsory access on basic, with a higher wholesale fee than many discretionary services.”
Even those Morin aims to help – independent specialty channels – are lukewarm to his idea. Channel Zero, owners of category two digital specialties Movieola and Silver Screen Classic, promoted its own Category A and Category B idea, into which all channels would be grouped. Depending on their levels of Cancon, specialties would be a Cat A (high Cancon would mean a must-carry on digital) or a Cat B – (less Cancon so no must carry).
“We believe that our approach is much simpler to administer than Commissioner Morin’s model, and does not interfere with the decisions which we believe BDUs should be free to make on the composition of the basic package,” says Channel Zero’s final submission.
Finally, Rogers Communications used a word many had in their final letters when it worried some specialties would resort to “gaming” the system to get basic carriage and that with additional Cancon spending, the basic tier would get incredibly large, filled with channels of little interest whose primary redeeming quality is that it shows a lot of video made in Canada.
“Rogers considers that while this proposal’s goal, to promote Canadian programming, is laudable, the model would not be in the public interest,” reads its submission. “It would likely result in regulatory gaming by specialty services and could lead to frequent and disruptive changes to the basic service package.”
– Greg O’Brien
