Some of Canada's biggest cable companies are unhappy about CTV's public campaign urging the government to allow the broadcaster to charge cable companies so-called carriage fees for the right to carry the CTV signal.

Cable companies, including Rogers, Bell, Telus and Cogeco, have filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission objecting to CTV's Save Local TV campaign.

The campaign amounts to "one-sided and unbalanced coverage" of the issue of carriage fees, they say.

CTV has been pressing the government and the regulator to approve the fees, but Rogers has told the CRTC that it would be forced to pass the cost of such fees on to consumers.

CTV's message is that local television stations no longer make money and need the fees to survive. As part of its campaign — in print ads, over the internet and on air — it is urging viewers to lobby politicians to force the cable firms to pay.

Otherwise, stations could close, Louis Douville, station manager at CTV Ottawa, told CBC News.

"That's a real possibility, unfortunately. Something we don't even want to think of," he said.

Douville said CTV had to pull out the stops in its Save Local TV campaign, which includes open houses at stations across the country scheduled for Saturday.

"At the end of the day, we can't lose sight that we're a business, beholden to shareholders. [We] have to sustain ourselves financially," he said.

CTV, which plans to shut down stations in Wingham and Wheatley, Ont., has stepped up its campaign over the last few weeks after hearings with the CRTC that touched on the future of conventional television.

Rogers vice-chairman Phil Lind says the campaign is "a blatant violation of respected journalistic principles."

He accused CTV of hijacking its own newscasts and contravening the Broadcasting Act.

In a letter to the CRTC, Rogers says broadcasters have a responsibility to provide reasonable, balanced coverage on matters of public concern.

Kelly Toughill, a journalism instructor at King's College in Halifax, doesn't believe all local CTV stations are at risk.

"I think they're exaggerating; I don't think they're bluffing," she said.

She says she's never seen such overt lobbying by a media company.

"There's a lot of dough at stake," she said. "The most conservative estimate I've seen is $300 million a year. But it won't end there, because conventional television is being blown up."

Conventional stations are facing stiff competition from specialty channels and other media, she said. Toughill says this will be just the first skirmish as both cable and broadcast companies deal with a slide in ad revenue and an increase in the number of people watching shows on the internet.

With files from The Canadian Press and CBC's Kate Porter