By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – While a determination on an application to amend conditions of licence relating to the set-top box audience measurement system has not yet been announced, Cartt.ca has confirmed Videotron has rejoined the working group trying to turn the viewer data from pay-TV in-home decoders (there aren’t a lot of these things still resting atop TV sets) into ratings currency.
The company rejoined the working group last week without providing an explanation or making comments. When asked, the CRTC referred question to the Working Group itself, led by Shaw, which did not respond to our inquiry.
Videotron left the working group last spring and had filed an application to the CRTC to amend the conditions of licence surrounding the outcome of the process to be put in place once the working group had finished its work. It also, unsuccessfully, appealed the Commission decision to the Federal Court of Appeal.
Videotron’s application for amendments of conditions of licence had been denied in Decision 2019-231 and the CRTC had determined that Videotron had to rejoin the working group no later than July 5, 2019. Working to bring the set top data to market is a condition of licence for all large BDUs.
In the same decision, the deadline for the implementation was delayed until January 15, 2020, which has passed without a word.
The purpose of the eventual measurement system was to provide broadcasters, especially smaller ones, better instruments to measure their audience. Smaller broadcasters often don’t appear in regular Numeris ratings surveys and previously, only vertically integrated entities had access to this the set top viewership information.
“In addition, the Commission considers that at this point in the process further lengthy delays would be harmful to the broadcasting system and Canadians and therefore highly inappropriate. An increasing number of Canadians are choosing to unsubscribe from their BDU’s service every day, and many decide to get their programming from non-conventional sources. The broadcasting industry is in need of all tools available to counter this trend. The Commission considers that the measurement system is one of those tools,” CRTC Decision 2019-231 reads.
