Source : Toronto Star

I wouldn't bet the monthly cost of a TSN subscription -$1.07 - that Canada's big corporate media will invest ink or air time reporting what arts groups, unions or media activists are telling the federal broadcast regulator this week about fees for carriage for TV stations you can pick up for nothing.

Nobody but the Star even bothered to publish that, last Friday, Conservative Heritage Minister Bev Oda had brushed asidea three-year study by a Senate committee warning of too muchmedia concentration.

Figures.

Last month, at a broadcasters' convention in Ottawa, Odatold her audience: "I'm with you. I'm one ofyou."

She also said she is "committed to more regulatory flexibility."

Well, let me tell you, after covering this business for the better part of 17 years, I have learned that, when broadcasterstalk about "flexibility," it's always Canadianartists, citizens, consumers who bend over.

Indeed, last week, after the big media guys - the suits fromCBC, CTV, CanWest Global, Rogers, Quebecor and Shaw - quit thatCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission(CRTC) hearing room in Hull, so too did reporters assigned tocover their bosses' begathons for more bucks.

Why is this important?

Because suckas, you are gonna be paying a lot more for whatyou are now getting for free!

So pay attention, will you please, because next spring, whenyour cable bill goes up by who-knows-how-much per month, I amgoing on vacation.

To put it succinctly - and this won't hurt a bit:

The CRTC is holding landmark structural hearings that will reshape the TV landscape.

Over-the-air broadcasters - i.e. those you can get even without cable or satellite - claim they deserve payment for distribution by cable or satellite companies which have built empires by essentially ripping off their content, unlike specialty channels such as MuchMusic and Newsworld which get fees for carriage, plus ad revenues.

(But less advertising because (a) they are restricted to fewer ads per hour than the networks and (b) because they are niche channels higher up on the dial, their audiences are smaller.)

The OTA stations, which have profited by delivering their ads to more eyeballs via clear signals on cable, are also crying the blues because distributors are now fragmenting their audiences by marketing time-shifted channels such as the West Coast feeds of CTV and Global.

Nobody wants to produce Canadian drama, which has virtually died no thanks to a devastatingly dumb 1999 CRTC policy.

Networks are spending record dollars on U.S. programming, which they get to simulcast, while homegrown TV dramas are disappearing.

Meanwhile, "Canadian" TV networks make millions and millions thanks to CRTC protection - and now they're asking for more, boo-hoo-hooing all the way to the bank.

But here's the thing: most of the reporting of this, with the notable exception of The Globe and Mail's John Doyle, has been in the business pages, where many readers don't go.

What's more, there has been no coverage of dissenting opinions from groups such as the Canadian Conference of the Arts or the Canadian Media Guild.

Yesterday, ACTRA, the Writers and Directors Guilds were up, along with the country's largest media union, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP).

Greg O'Brien, editor and publisher of e-daily Cartt.ca, told me only his reporter was there.

Which is why you won't hear on network news shows or reading most papers how CEP's Peter Murdoch criticized CBC-TV's executive vice-president Richard Stursberg for saying that "some eyeballs are better than others," as if all Canadians don't contribute toward the network.

Nor will you hear how Murdoch, whose union represents Star workers, attacked the Bell Globemedia takeover of CHUM, and how Torstar, which owns the Star, is participating in that consolidation. And, of course, there were no reminders in the business sections of CHUM's elimination of news programming in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg.

No, but I bet you saw the CTV and Global bosses looking good on their own networks. On that, I'll wager a year's worth of TSN.

CLARIFICATION: The actual taxpayer contribution to CBC and Radio-Canada TV is $501 million.

© Toronto Star