Post Tagged with: "Broadcasting"

Consumer Choice Holds The Key To Solving Fee-For-Carriage Fight

Today is the deadline for submitting comments on the fee-for-carriage issue (you can do so directly at the CRTC's website) and I wade in with my views in this week's technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version).  I note that for the past two months, Canadians have been subjected to a non-stop marketing campaign pitting two deep-pocketed industries – broadcasters and broadcast distributors – against each other.  Television and radio commercials, full-page newspaper advertisements, websites and Twitter posts all seek to convince the public that new fees for local television signals are, depending on your perspective, either a TV tax or crucial funding to save local television.

Broadcasters claim some local TV stations will close if they do not receive millions in additional fees from cable and satellite companies as compensation for distributing their signal.  Cable and satellite companies leave little doubt they will pass along any new fees – possibly as much as $10 per month per subscriber – to their customers. The additional fees inevitably will not come from the bottom lines of cable and satellite companies, but rather from the pockets of consumers.

While the reaction for many Canadians might be sensibly to tune out the entire mess, politicians and regulators will still be left seeking a solution. In fact, some politicians have pledged to support local television, but also promised to avoid new consumer costs.  Can these two positions be reconciled?

Perhaps.

The answer may lie in giving consumers more choice, by allowing them to pay only for the channels they want – regardless of whether they are local, foreign, or specialty (such as CNN or movie networks).  

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November 2, 2009 41 comments Columns

Consumer Choice The Key To Solving Fee-For-Carriage Fight

Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 2, 2009 as Consumer Choice Key To Ending This Fight For the past two months, Canadians have been subjected to a non-stop marketing campaign pitting two deep-pocketed industries – broadcasters and broadcast distributors – against each other.  Television and radio commercials, full-page newspaper […]

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November 2, 2009 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

The Estimated Revenues From Fee-For-Carriage

The CRTC estimates that fee-for-carriage would generate $352 million in revenues for Canadian broadcasters.  As I argued last week, ultimately FFC is going to cost consumers.

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April 28, 2009 8 comments News

Policy Toolkit Nearly Empty In Bid To Support Local TV

This week a steady stream of television and cable executives will appear in Ottawa before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to discuss the "evolution of the television industry in Canada and its impact on local communities."  My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that MPs from all parties will demand to know what companies like Rogers, CTV, and Canwest are prepared to do to ensure that local television broadcasting does not disappear in many smaller and medium sized communities. 

The current "crisis" feels new, yet the issues are nearly as old as Canadian broadcasting itself.  The economics of Canadian broadcasting have relied on a range of policy support mechanisms that include: lucrative commercial substitution, which lets broadcasters substitute Canadian commercials during the simulcast of popular U.S. programs; market protection that has limited local competition; declining programming commitments that allows broadcasters to fill airtime with cheaper foreign programming; and corporate convergence approvals that have resulted in only a handful of big Canadian broadcasters.

Broadcasters now argue these measures are insufficient and with the latest round of threats to shut down some local stations, MPs will be anxious to identify solutions to keep broadcasters in business.  As they grapple with the issue, the MPs would do well to remember that at least three separate issues are often lumped together into the single umbrella issue of local broadcasting.

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April 20, 2009 18 comments Columns

Policy Toolkit Nearly Empty In Bid To Support Local TV

Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 20, 2009 as Old Issues in Modern TV 'Crisis' This week a steady stream of television and cable executives will appear in Ottawa before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to discuss the "evolution of the television industry in Canada and its impact […]

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April 20, 2009 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive