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| Allarco Thinks The CRTC Should Tighten, Not Loosen Regulations |
| Posted
on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 10:44 AM |
Super Channel representatives offered recent experiences as examples of reasons why the CRTC needs to enforce current regulation and impose penalties to curb a blatant disregard of its rulings.
Close to six months after launch, despite having a national licence which states `must carry’, we are still not available to almost 50 per cent of potential customers across Canada,” said Chuck Allard, Chairman of Allarco Entertainment Inc. which owns Super Channel, Canada’s only national pay television network.
Noting that Canada’s six major cable and satellite companies or broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) have the power of life or death when negotiating with independent programming services, Allard went on to describe the challenges Super Channel has faced in trying to get the services to honour its “must carry” status.
He explained that many cable and satellite services interpreted offering Super Channel in a manner comparable to the incumbent pay services as meaning the same retail price, but not necessarily all the multiplex channels or even the high definition components, which are both key selling points to consumers.
Bell ExpressVu was the only major BDU to provide Super Channel with all six channels - high and standard definition - soon after it was awarded its licence.
Most other BDUs claimed a lack of channel capacity, while simultaneously launching HD versions of US channels providing primarily up-converted programming content.
“The Commission should have powers, much like the FCC in the United States and Ofcom in Britain, which both can impose heavy fines on parties that do not respect regulations,” said Allard. “In addition, the Commission should have the means to determine monetary compensation for the losses of licensees which face BDUs that don’t respect Commission decisions. We estimate, the delays incurred by Super Channel while negotiating `must carry’, will have cost us over $12 million in this start up year alone.”
Super Channel representatives went on to detail key issues that should be addressed as the CRTC reviews the regulatory framework for BDUs and discretionary programming services.
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