OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed a complaint against OMNI Regional’s parent Rogers Media that alleged non-compliance with the service’s third-language news requirement.
The complaint, filed last October by Unifor on behalf of media workers at OMNI, claimed that Rogers’ decision to hire Fairchild TV to create its Cantonese and Mandarin newscasts rather than produce them in-house violated its condition of licence. The Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations (CSALC/UARR) filed a similar application.
The applicants also raised concerns about the loss of editorial diversity and local news coverage for Chinese-speaking Canadians due to the fact that Fairchild is the only other major Canadian producer of newscasts in Cantonese and Mandarin.
In its decision Tuesday, the Commission noted that the issue raised in the applications ultimately revolves around the interpretation of OMNI Regional’s condition of licence 11, which reads that “(t)he licensee shall produce and broadcast daily, national, 30-minute newscasts, 7 days per week, in each of the Italian, Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi languages”, and in particular, the meaning that should be given to the term “produce”. It determined that “it is reasonable to interpret “produce” as including either in-house production or programming produced with the assistance of third parties.”
“Condition of licence 11 states that the licensee shall “produce” the news programming in question”, reads the decision. “The Commission notes that this term is not qualified or otherwise narrowed. In particular, condition of licence 11 does not specify whether the programming is to be produced in-house or in partnership. This stands in contrast to other conditions of licence within the OMNI Regional licence, such as those relating to programs of national interest and original local programming for the Quebec feed. These conditions of licence make explicit reference to independent production. Accordingly, had the Commission intended to impose specific requirements regarding the method by which newscasts were to be produced, it would have also done so in condition of licence 11.”
In addressing the applicants’ concerns over a loss of diversity in programming and editorial control, the CRTC said it is convinced that Rogers and Fairchild have structured their news programming acquisition agreement in such a way that final editorial control over OMNI Regional’s news programming remains with Rogers.
“The Commission is also satisfied that the agreement provides sufficient restrictions on the degree of overlap that can occur between the programming produced for OMNI Regional and the programming produced by Fairchild for its own services”, continues the decision. “These safeguards, along with the fact that Rogers continues to produce its weekly current affairs programming in-house, offer sufficient diversity in news programming.”
Unifor was quick to criticize the decision, saying that the move to “contract out” OMNI Regional's Chinese language newscasts and re-hire only some of the employees that were laid off when those same newscasts were first cancelled breaks a written promise made by Rogers Media "to re-establish in-house production in all markets served by OMNI's television stations".
"Local news is essential and licensed news broadcasts are not playing cards to be swapped with the only competing TV station in the community," said Unifor national president Jerry Dias, in a statement. "Rogers promised not to do this. They did it anyway."
When contacted by Cartt.ca, Rogers Media’s SVP of TV and broadcast operations Colette Watson said that the company was “pleased” with the CRTC’s decision.
“Our commitment through OMNI Regional is to deliver language newscasts in Canada to a growing number of ethnic and third-language communities and we take this responsibility very seriously”, she said in an emailed response. “By leveraging established third-party resources and expertise, we’re in a better position to deliver quality multicultural and multilingual programming to Canadians.”
