A broad-range review of broadcast distribution in Canada begins Tuesday in Gatineau, with the hot button issues of Canadian content and American access to Canadian airwaves on the table.

The federal regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, said it is conducting the hearings with a view to reducing regulation to the "minimum essential to achieve the objectives of the [Broadcasting] Act."

Among the issues being considered is whether to end protection for Canadian specialty channels, such as the History Channel, and whether U.S. satellite carriers should be allowed access to the Canadian market.

The deregulation agenda suits most cable and satellite carriers, but it has Canada's creative community worried.

ACTRA, the Writers Guild of Canada and the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting held a news conference Monday in Toronto to release the results of a study showing Canadians expect the CRTC to protect Canadian culture.

"The cable industry has the time and the money and the lawyers to put forward their point of view at these hearings," said actor R.H. Thomson at the news conference. "What's missing [is] the Canadian public — the people who actually watch the programming."

Majority worry about survival

The study, done in March, showed 55 per cent of Canadians believe Canada's TV production industry will not survive if the cable and satellite industry are deregulated and 74 per cent believe deregulation will lead to less Canadian programming on TV.

"Viewers have a strong sense of their Canadian identity and values and they expect to see that reflected on TV," said Robert Hutton, vice-president of Pollara, which questioned 1,200 Canadians in the poll.

"They expect the Canadian government and the CRTC to protect their interests." 
 
The CRTC plans to consider many aspects of how cable and satellite firms are regulated, including a review of rules that force distributors to carry Canadian channels and a simplification of rules that require Canadian content.

Also on the agenda for the hearing:

  • Whether genre stations should continue to have protection or be open to competition from similar specialty stations on cable and satellite.
  • Whether non-Canadian satellite services should be allowed into the Canadian market.
  • Whether cable and satellite firms should have to pay conventional broadcasters such as CBC and CTV for their signal.
  • Simplification of rules that require distributors to carry minority language and ethnic stations.
  • A review of rules that require cable firms not to give preference to broadcasters they own.
  • A review of rules, including Canadian content rules, for video-on-demand and pay-per-view.
  • A review of the 12 minutes per hour of advertising allowed on TV.

The CRTC will also look at how quickly broadcasters are moving away from analog TV and how to provide high-definition TV.

The CRTC said it wants to strike a balance between providing Canadian content and allowing competition for specialty stations, possibly from U.S.-based broadcasters.

Cable and satellite providers say they need a more streamlined environment to meet coming changes in technology that might see viewers seeking out new platforms such as the internet.

But ACTRA and its supporters say the distributors are very profitable, more so than many broadcasters.

Pressed for hearing

The cable and satellite industry have pressed for the hearing because they want to escape their commitments and obligations to provide Canadian programming, Thomson said.

"These hearings are discussing non-existent problems," said Martha Fusca, president of specialty channel operator Stornoway Communications, speaking at Monday's news conference.

"The cable and satellite companies have grown under an environment of protection and now they are huge, they don't want anyone else to have protection," she said.

Canada's TV production sector is already under stress because of a change in rules by the CRTC in 1999 that allowed reality TV and news magazines to count as Canadian content, said Ian Morrison of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

He estimated the production industry could shrink by an additional $750 million a year if Canadian content rules are loosened and specialty channels do not retain their protection from U.S. competitors.