CRTC pay radio ruling prompts appeal
Source : Canadian Press
June 17, 2005
TORONTO -- There will be at least one appeal to the federal cabinet of Thursday's subscription-radio ruling by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, the not-for-profit media watchdog group, said Friday.
Although industry stakeholders have 45 days to decide whether to appeal, the group's spokesman Ian Morrison said a half-dozen interested arts organizations concluded at a Friday conference call there will be an appeal of the ruling.
"We'll be making an announcement in due course," Morrison said. "It's clear from the call that there will be maybe more than one appeal. We all have our own arguments and it's now just a question of people consulting."
In its milestone decision, the CRTC granted licenses to all three applications to bring new digital pay-radio technology to Canada, but it also imposed Canadian content restrictions, which some suggest are too onerous and others say don't go far enough.
Morrison said he isn't at liberty to name the other groups who might appeal the regulatory ruling but said the CRTC decision "creates a pipeline for U.S. radio programs direct to Canada, with little in return for our country."
The three applicants granted licences were: Canadian Satellite Radio (a collaboration between Canadian businessman John Bitove and Washington-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings), Sirius Canada (the CBC, Standard Radio and the American Sirius Satellite Radio) and the all-Canadian entry involving CHUM Ltd., (TSX:CHM.NV.B) and Montreal-based Astral Media (TSX:ACM.NV.A).
Morrison's group and the Canadian Recording Industry Association have made it clear the CRTC decision was "short-sighted", with Friends arguing that the decision ran counter to the Broadcasting Act by letting the two U.S.-based satellite services off the hook on Canadian content while possibly opening the floodgate to appeals from commercial radio to ease their own Canadian music content requirements.
The recording industry association, meanwhile, expressed concern the subscription services fail to hold the line on music piracy and would shortchange emerging Canadian artists.
The CHUM and Astral group, which plans ground-based communications stations, also expressed disappointment that the ruling let their two satellite-based competitors off the hook with only nominal Canadian content requirements. The CHUM bid was supported by Friends for its much higher Canadian content commitment.
Morrison was also upset at CBC president Robert Rabinovitch for aligning the public broadcaster with a foreign service.
"If Mr. Rabinovitch had been the president of CBC 60-70 years ago, we probably would have NBC and ABC in Canada with an hour or so of Canadian content.
"This is a nation-building thing and nobody created the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to facilitate the entry of, what is that, 91 per cent American content into Canada."
In trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday, CHUM's B shares were unchanged at $30.05, while Astral stock rose five cents to $31.24.
