Ms. Ursula Menke
The Secretary General
CRTC
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0N2

Dear Ms. Menke:

Re: Public Notice CRTC 2001-65:
Amendment to CTV Newsnet Conditions of Licence

1. Five years ago CTV N1 – Headline News applied for a licence to offer a service which was proposed as complementary to, and not competitive with, existing Canadian specialty services. Had CTV proposed a service competitive with CBC Newsworld, no licence would have been issued, because such a proposal would have been inconsistent with the Commission’s established policies for specialty services.

2. The rationale for CTV’s original proposal, as stated in Newsnet’s licence (Decision CRTC ? 96-597), was to offer a service that would "contribute to diversity by providing television viewers at all times of the day with a service that… will be totally differentiated from CBC Newsworld."

3. On numerous occasions since its 1997 launch, Newsnet has broadcast long-form programming in contravention of its conditions of licence. Your Commission has previously warned CTV that Newsnet "must maintain, at all times, a ‘headline news’ format."

4. As The Commission points out in PN CRTC 2001-65, observance by licensees of their conditions of licence is of critical importance to the integrity of Canadian broadcasting policy.

5. Your public notice is more than charitable in ascribing continuing breach of Newsnet’s conditions of licence to a "misunderstanding". Friends considers it much more likely that the management of CTV may have been testing on-air your determination to enforce your policies.

6. Should CTV wish to remove the prohibition on long-form programming from Newsnet’s licence, it has the option of doing so "through the front door", using the procedure of applying for an amendment to its conditions of licence, or, alternately, by addressing proposed changes in format on the occasion of its licence renewal.

7. Friends therefore supports your proposal to amend Newsnet’s nature of service condition of licence including specifically, to provide that:

8. "In exceptional circumstances, programming may depart from the headline news format for the coverage of events. When this occurs, the service must provide a break following no more than 15 minutes of such event coverage, excluding commercial time, to broadcast ‘headline news’ as defined in 1(b) above. This break must provide a minimum of 5 minutes of ‘headline news’, excluding commercial time."

Yours sincerely,

Ian Morrison
Spokesperson

cc: Trina McQueen
Robert Rabinovitch