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| CPAC license renewal gives an unfair competitive advantages over i-Channel: Stornoway Communications |
| Posted
on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 09:40 AM |
Stornoway Communications, as owner of ichannel, Canada’s national public affairs television channel has appealed to Cabinet to set aside the unfair CRTC decision by which CPAC has been allowed to radically alter its license and gain undue and significant competitive advantages over Stornoway and other broadcasters.
CPAC, owned and controlled by Canada’s largest cable TV companies, was originally authorized to carry proceedings of the House of Commons and other gavel-to-gavel coverage of public affairs proceedings. This programming is not available elsewhere and is complementary to other broadcasters. Stornoway is completely supportive of CPAC’s continued coverage of proceedings of the House of Commons, the Senate and other gavel-to-gavel public affairs proceedings.
Stornoway was licensed two years ago in a very competitive process as a national public affairs channel to provide programming that analyzes and interprets Canadian public and social affairs. From its roots as a small, independent television and film producer, Stornoway undertook enormous financial risks to compete for and become a licensed broadcaster with ichannel.
ichannel’s license does not permit any other broadcaster to directly compete with ichannel, as a matter of specific CRTC policy. This policy has been in place since 1984. The new license granted to CPAC now allows it to compete directly with ichannel, and to a lesser extent with other broadcasters.
Unlike ichannel’s licensing which took us through a highly competitive call for license applications, CPAC has not been subjected to a competitive licensing process where other parties could apply for the privilege of providing this service. In fact, at inception, CPAC was only licensed to carry House of Commons proceedings – programming which is unavailable elsewhere and which is complementary to other Canadian broadcasting services. Moreover, as a public service, CPAC was not in the past allowed to charge consumers that it can do now.
Therefore, through a so-called “license renewal” process, CPAC has been given unprecedented monopoly-like privileges: 1) automatic carriage on all cable, satellite and other multi-channel TV distributors (excepting the smallest cable operators), 2) consumers have no choice but to pay for this service and, in addition, 3) the type of programming which CPAC can carry has been expanded into new areas which are directly competitive with existing licensees, but most specifically with ichannel.
By way of contrast, at the last open, competitive licensing process held by the CRTC, Stornoway’s ichannel was granted carriage only on digital distribution systems; (now, about 1/3 of households receiving CPAC), there was no requirement for households to purchase ichannel; and the CRTC put restrictions on the type of programming which ichannel could carry to ensure that it was not directly competitive with other licensed services.
CPAC should never have been granted this new license without a comprehensive, competitive and open licensing process that clearly set out the parameters of its service and carriage in a Public Notice prior to the oral hearing.
Further, CPAC should never have been licensed to offer programming which is directly competitive with ichannel programming.
In addition; the CRTC has a long-standing policy in place, not to authorize significant changes to license conditions or reorientation of a broadcasting service when the licensee is operating in breach of its license.
CPAC, with the enormous advantages granted to it by the current CRTC decision, is now authorized to show the type of programming that ichannel was licensed to offer. ichannel has not only earned the right to provide this programming to Canadians, ichannel has demonstrated that it can and will continue to do a better job of providing an enlightening and compelling public affairs service than anyone else.
Stornoway has persevered through tough economic challenges and is not going to lay down and give up now. If CPAC is allowed to achieve this new service through a faulty and unfair regulatory process and decision, thereby irreparably damaging ichannel’s business and programming service, it will be to the long-lasting detriment of the Canadian broadcasting system and to all Canadians.
Word Document available: Petition to the Governor in Council Subsection 28(1) of the Broadcasting Act CRTC Decision 2002-377
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