CRTC grants short licence renewals to private TV broadcasters

Citing the current troubled economy, Canada's broadcast regulator has decided to grant short-term licence renewals for many of the country's private broadcasters.

As part of its decision, selected details of which the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released on Friday, the regulator has rejected increasing Canadian content spending — for now — and postponed a decision regarding the controversial carriage fees debate.

"We are making our initial determinations public to provide a measure of guidance to conventional broadcasters as they prepare for the upcoming broadcast year and embark on program purchases," CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein said in a statement.

"In the case of the large networks, we have opted for shorter licence terms to give these broadcasters some flexibility during the current period of economic uncertainty."

The CRTC has granted one-year renewals for CTV, Canwest, Sun TV and Rogers Communications-operated Citytv stations. TVA stations will be renewed for two-years.

Omni stations, also operated by Rogers, received a six-year renewal, while RNC Media and Télé Inter-Rives stations are renewed for a full seven-year period.

All renewals take effect on Sept. 1, with specific terms and conditions for each to be made public in the coming weeks, the CRTC said.

1:1 spending ratio 'impractical' at this time, CRTC says

In Friday's announcement, the CRTC also rejected a proposal that it compel English-language broadcasters to spend the same amount of money on Canadian programming that they currently do on foreign productions.

In a report it released in February, the regulator said that in 2008, private broadcasters spent $775.2 million on foreign programming and $619.6 million on Canadian programming, with the majority of the latter figure going to news ($323 million).

The idea of this 1:1 ratio requirement had been introduced earlier this year.

However, after contemplating and hearing evidence presented at its hearings in late April considering these short-term renewals, the commissioners decided imposing the condition at this time "would be impractical and inappropriate," the regulator said.

Still, the CRTC says it will explore ways to set a minimum spending level for Canadian programming — and how to enforce this spending — in a series of hearings this fall.

Will look at new revenue for conventional broadcasters

These new hearings will also investigate a number of policy issues, including the contentious concept of carriage fees. Broadcasters had urged the CRTC to compel TV carriers (like cable and satellite companies Rogers, Bell and Shaw) to pay them a fee for their free, over-the-air signals. The companies already pay specialty channels for the right to carry their signals.

The CRTC has consistently rejected the idea of carriage fees in the past few years, even amid recent heritage committee discussions about the dire state of the television industry, and local programming in particular.

In its statement, the regulator said it wants broadcasters to negotiate "a fair market value for [their] signals" with the carriers themselves.

Under this plan, if the two sides negotiate and cannot agree to a deal, only then would the CRTC be called on to serve as arbitrator, according to a report in the Globe and Mail published Friday.

Looking for alternative ways to finance the creation of local programming will also be part of the fall proceedings, details of which will be unveiled in the summer.

The CRTC is also planning another round of licence renewals for spring 2010 to consider assessing applications by ownership group, because of the concentration of ownership in broadcasting.