UPDATED: Supreme Court says no to fee-for-carriage

OTTAWA – In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada said Thursday that the CRTC does not have the jurisdiction to allow conventional over-the-air broadcasters pursue a wholesale fee from BDUs for the carriage of their signals. The court’s decision should just about bring to a close the so-called fee-for-carriage (FFC) or value-for-signal (VFS) debate. The court heard the case back in April which was essentially between the big BDUs, which had always stood against VFS, and Bell Canada. Canwest Television was listed as a respondent, but that was a leftover artefact of the earlier case as Canwest’s new...