Source : Ottawa Citizen

When it comes to rendering decisions, CRTC commissioners have been known to agonize for months on end.

Yesterday, however, they made short work of one of their most important decisions of 2007: they chose Michel Arpin to serve as interim chairman of the federal broadcast and telecom industry regulator.

Mr. Arpin immediately replaces Charles Dalfen, whose term ended Dec. 31, with no successor in the wings.

So far, there's no indication that the Privy Council Office, which oversees this appointment, has made any progress in recruiting a new, outside chairman, even as an extraordinarily busy schedule of critical industry decisions and hearings loom for the first half of the year.

It's also worth noting that this marks yet another interim appointment in a key slot. The Tory government has also opted to go with an interim RCMP commissioner and an interim chairman for the National Capital Commission.

Still, with a strong background in the broadcast sector, the choice of Mr. Arpin has abundant support from the industry side of the fence.

"We're at a point in the business where we need a very steady hand on the tiller," Glenn O'Farrell, head of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, said yesterday. "There's no question that's something that Michel can provide. He's tremendously capable."

The choice of a broadcast hand over one from the telecom sector reflects the fact that several major telecom issues -- such as deregulation of local telephone markets -- were squared away last year.

Furthermore, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier has now signalled a clear preference to shape telecom policy in his own hands, twice overturning benchmark rulings made by the CRTC in recent months.

Among the many broadcast issues with which Mr. Arpin must now grapple is a decision on the extremely contentious television policy hearings that took place in November, where the issue of fee-for-carriage was argued. (He played a lead role in those hearings, in which he participated with astonishing good humour and patience.)

Furthermore, rolling out over the next few weeks there are also regulatory reviews scheduled for the specialty and pay-per-view television market, broadcast distribution, cable television operators and, the elephant in the room, Bell Globemedia's proposed $1.7-billion acquisition of CHUM. Inevitably, assessment of that deal will also include a healthy dose of media concentration debate as well.

The issue of media concentration, which was the subject of a Senate committee report last year, will be all the more super-charged if CanWest Global Communications (which owns the Citizen) is successful in its ongoing bid to gain control of Alliance Atlantis.

An industry veteran who has held senior posts at Astral Broadcasting Group and Radiomutuel Inc., Mr. Arpin also has solid credentials on the bureaucratic side.

He held a variety of top level CRTC positions from 1971 to 1979 and has been vice-chairman of the CRTC's broadcasting arm since August 2005.

That ready familiarity with the issues and the processes will be especially useful when it comes to the springtime review of Bell Globemedia's application -- filed just prior to Christmas -- to take over CHUM.

The media concentration button is always a hot one. And because the transaction entails a full change of ownership, the merged company could be on the hook to pay as much as $170 million to various cultural organizations across Canada.

The CRTC's "Benefit Policy" dictates that 10 per cent of the value of television assets and six per cent of the value of radio assets must be earmarked for arts and other groups that form part of the broadcast orbit.

Although it's likely that Bell Globemedia will argue that its benefit payments should be based on an after debt amount of $1.4 billion, rather than the full $1.7 billion, there's also another wrinkle for someone like Mr. Arpin, who's got extensive radio industry experience.

To further limit its payout, analysts suggest that Bell Globemedia may opt to emphasize the value of the radio over the television assets, thereby maximizing the sum that qualifies for the six, rather than 10- per-cent tariff.

But, of course, there's always the possibility that the search for a new CRTC chair could be completed before that review takes place.

© Ottawa Citizen