Source: Montreal Gazette

The most unseemly of bedfellows held their breath and banded together Tuesday in a "historic" pitch to Canada’s broadcasting regulator to once more "save local TV" .

Standing before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, conventional broadcasters CTV Inc., Global TV and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. — composing a unified front in Gatineau, Que. — say they have crafted a "consumer first" solution to the so-called fee-for-carriage debate.

Endorsing the suggestion of others, the three TV networks said the CRTC should implement a "skinny" basic cable package that would cost consumers about $20 a month depending on the market. The package, which would address affordability which is a chief concern of the commission, would be a pared back offering that carried over-the-air signals from local stations as well mandatory channels like CPAC.

"This will help protect those consumers who are most vulnerable with price increases," said Mike Woolatt, vice president of government relations for Canwest.

However, beyond supporting a thinned-down basic TV package, the message from the broadcasters, which for at least the last year have been pitted against cable and satellite firms like Rogers Communications Inc. in an increasingly acrimonious row, remains unchanged.

In a hearing originally convened to hear out consumers yesterday but which was dominated by industry players including cable and satellite providers like Bell Canada, the broadcast front once more urged the CRTC to order Bell, Rogers and others to come to the table and negotiate fees on the over-the-air signals they receive from stations for free.

"This isn’t an option," said one source close to one of the networks. Global, CTV and CBC have seen revenues decline steadily in recent years as competition from specialty channels and to a lesser extent online sources chip away at their hold over advertisers.

Global is owned by Canwest Global Communications Corp., also the parent of the National Post.

The recession has sharply compounded their financial woes, forcing layoffs and closures at smaller-market stations. Further upheaval is expected if the broadcasters continue to face shrinking revenues, they argue, making it impossible for them to maintain their regulated levels of local programming.

The recourse, which the CRTC is considering, is to change the rules to allow broadcasters to charge cable distributors for the stations they carry. However, the proposal is being vigorously contested by Rogers, Shaw Communications Inc. and others who decry that broadcasters get sufficient support already through existing mechanisms such as the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF).

The LPIF kicks back 1.5% of total subscriber revenues into a super-fund which is redistributed by the CRTC. It generates about $100-million annually.

A source close to the broadcasters said that if the CRTC orders "baseball-style" arbitration where a third-party adjudicates negotiations between each side, "that would be it," they said. Broadcasters would be satisfied to "let the market decide" whether conventional TV could remain viable.

The CRTC has been asked by Heritage Minister James Moore to report its findings from the hearings before the end of the year.

© Montreal Gazette