CRTC decision helps black market

For the second time in six months, the federal broadcast regulator has handed
down a decision on criteria for foreign thirdlanguage broadcasters that will
have the effect of stimulating - not reducing - the black market for illegal
satellite dishes.

On Thursday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
finally opened the door for the likes of Italian-language RAI International to be carried in Canada. But Canadians who want to subscribe to a foreign-based third-language network will first have to subscribe to a Canadian-based service offering some programming in that same third language, the CRTC said. The effect of this is to build in prohibitive cost considerations that will turn off many potential customers.

In order to get the new RAI service, for example, Videotron customers in
Montreal will first have to agree to take out a subscription to Toronto-based
Telelatino, which broadcasts in Italian and Spanish.

But no Telelatino subscription is possible without first signing up for
digital cable, and digital cable is not offered to basic-cable subscribers, only Telemax customers. Overall, then, just to get Telelatino, the qualifying outlay would be just short of $50 monthly; and that doesn't include the $200 one-time cost of the adaptor required to get digital cable.

This week's ruling comes on the heels of last July's CRTC decision to let
Canadian cable and satellite companies carry the Arabic language Al-Jazeera
network - with the proviso, however, that these companies accept legal
responsibility for any content that might incite hate. No company was willing to do that, so Al-Jazeera still has no corporate sponsor. Regulations which in theory allow the service legally into Canadian living rooms, in practice work to keep it out.

Broadcast regulation made a lot of sense when television dials went from 2 to
13. But with television delivered by fibre optics now losing ground to
television delivered by satellite, regulatory policy is losing its grip on the real world. Everyone knows there's a thriving black market in satellite TV.  Increasingly, the regulator is not really regulating. Will Ottawa crack down on illegal dishes? Heritage Minister Liza Frulla is now hinting that might well happen, though she gave no details.

Will the RCMP, already overworked and understaffed, be enlisted? Or does
Frulla have a new federal satellite-TV police in mind, like Quebec's language
police? What a metaphor for modern multicultural Canada that would be. But it's just very hard to imagine the Martin government authorizing raids on immigrant (and other) households and businesses.

Very likely, as with the Canada Health Act, laws and regulation will say one
thing, but violations will be discreetly tolerated.

© The Gazette