Stay tuned for the conclusion to this exciting episode

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/03/2010 (5677 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal broadcast regulator almost made a decision Monday that would allow local TV stations to force the cable and satellite companies that carry their signals to negotiate a "fair market value" fee for including local stations in their channel lineups.

The "almost" attached to Monday’s announcement by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is there because the broadcast regulator’s legal minds are unsure whether the commission has the power to implement such a decision, and has asked the Federal Court of Appeal to rule on this question of jurisdiction.

And what does all this mean to the average, at-home TV viewer who has spent much of the last year being bored to tears by the endless serve-and-volley of "Save Local TV!" and "Don’t Tax My TV!" advertisements?

Well, nothing… yet.

What the CRTC declared Monday, after months of hearings and lobbying and subsequent weeks of deliberation, is that maybe it finally is time to consider a "fee for carriage" arrangement that would allow local TV stations — all of which are owned by one or another of Canada’s major broadcasting conglomerates, by the way — to sit down with cable and satellite operators and "negotiate… to establish fair value."

Under the scenario proposed in its near-decision, representatives from stations such as Winnipeg’s CTV and Global affiliates would be allowed to get together with folks from signal distributors such as Shaw or MTS TV to try to hammer out deals that would pay the local stations the same kind of per-subscriber fee that the cable/satellite companies currently pay to specialty-network operators such as TSN, Showcase or HGTV.

If such an agreement couldn’t be reached, the local station(s) would have the right to opt out of being carried by the cable/satellite provider — which would mean the disappearance of those stations’ programming, including local news and imported U.S. dramas and sitcoms.

And unless some sort of accommodation could be reached, the local station(s) in question, as rights-holder to such imported shows — C.S.I. or The Office or Lost or whatever — in this market, would have the right to demand any broadcast of those shows, including on originating networks CBS, NBC and ABC be blacked out.

Which, of course, would be wildly unpopular with TV viewers and would only serve to deepen the public’s contempt for broadcasters and cable/satellite operators alike.

It sounds like an extreme endgame, but it isn’t. There’s already precedent, south of the border, in the recent spat between a cable company and ABC that saw that network’s New York affiliate pulled from the cable company’s lineup, denying millions of viewers access to ABC’s broadcast of the Academy Awards — or, at least, the first 10 minutes of the show, until an after-the-last-minute deal was struck between the local station and the cable company.

In Monday’s announcement, the chairman of the CRTC declared "the time has come for (broadcasters and cable/satellite companies) to put their differences aside and work together to ensure the continuation of conventional television, which Canadians clearly value."

But there is potential for nastiness in what the CRTC is proposing, what local TV stations have demanded and what cable/satellite operators have decried (and, in most emphatic terms, insisted they’ll treat as a "tax" that will be passed directly to consumers).

There will be more bickering. There will be more lobbying. There will be much more negotiation.

There might even be more of those annoying TV ads trying to convince viewers they should pick sides in a battle between rather unlikable foes.

But that’s later. If. When.

For the time being, the CRTC has tossed the ball into the appeal court’s court, awaiting a legal ruling on whether it has the power to make this regulatory ruling.

Folks who spent Monday expecting the earth to shake beneath Canada’s broadcasting firmament will have to wait just a little while longer.

 

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca