Rogers, CBC kick off CRTC TV review hearings

Giving consumers more choice, while still protecting the domestic television industry was the refrain touted by both Rogers and the CBC onDay 1of public hearings examining Canadian television distribution.

However, Canada's largest cable company and the nation's public broadcaster voiced opposing opinions on the controversial issue of carriage fees, one of the hot-button topics of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's planned three weeks of hearings in Gatineau, Que.

Amid the growing competition presented by the internet, "we want a strong broadcasting system but one that offers diversity," Ted Rogers, president and CEO of Rogers Communications, said on Tuesday.

"We want Canadians to stay with us, to stay within the system, rather than go somewhere else. It's as simple as that."

The Rogers panel proposed that by emulating the internet's responsiveness, Canadian providers could give viewers a reason to stay. They cited further developing popular value-added features such as video on demand, more high definition offerings and time-shifting.

The cable giant's representatives also advocated eliminating genre protection regulations, saying the increased competition would encourage better programming, and pushed for introducing a more targeted model of "dynamic advertising."

While he supported some increase in U.S. programming, Rogers did, however, specify that he opposed the CRTC lifting its current restrictions on directly offering foreign cable stations to Canadians.

Most vociferously, he also attacked private conventional broadcasters over their desire for carriage fees, in which cable and satellite companies would have to pay over-the-air broadcasters in order to carry their signals.

"Fee-for-carriage will not give consumers more value," Rogers said, estimating that if adopted, the model could inflate cable bills by $5 to $10 a month.

"It's value that really matters to our customers. If broadcasters are not as profitable as they used to be, it's because they've spent too much on U.S. programming," he charged.

After spending millions on buying U.S. programming and "now they come here and say 'give us more money'... it doesn't make sense. It doesn't hang together," he continued, describing the proposed fees as "a consumer tax grab, plain and simple."

CBC proposes carriage fee, smaller basic offering

In the afternoon session, Richard Stursberg, CBC's executive vice-president of English services, said that "the general premise of the Rogers presentation this morning, I completely agree with. We have to find ways of ensuring greater choice for customers."

However, the CBC has a different proposal: introducing a modest carriage fee of about $1.50 going to conventional broadcasters, which will be channeled towards the creation of Canadian content.

Stursberg also outlined a plan whereas cable and satellite providers offer a much smaller basic service which would be made up of about a dozen core Canadian networks and allowing "individual consumers to create their own tiers or bundles" of all other channels from there.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, both of which oppose deregulating foreign TV services, also spoke on Tuesday afternoon.

Alain Pineau, national director of the CCA, also said he supports carriage fees if they are channeled towards the production of Canadian programming.

Von Finckenstein lays out main scope of discussion

At the start of Tuesday's session, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein acknowledged the broad scope of the hearings and laid out five key issues the commission will attempt to focus on:

• The size of the basic TV package to be offered to Canadians.
• Should certain specialty or pay services have guaranteed access?
• Should the current genre protection rules be eliminated or changed?
• Should there be a fee for carrying conventional over-the-air broadcasters?
• Should TV distributors have access to advertising revenues from on-demand sevices or local avails?

The hearings are part of a sweeping review of the CRTC's regulations over TV broadcast distribution and programming services. The last such review was completed in 1993, von Finckenstein said.