Shaw, Quebecor blast TV fund at CRTC hearing

Shaw Communications didn't hold back its scorn for the Canadian Television Fund on Thursday, kicking off the day's CRTC hearing about the CTF by calling it a "failure" and "doomed."

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has been holding hearings all week into proposed changes to the fund. As expected, Shaw chief Jim Shaw did not show for Thursday's session in Gatineau, Que.

Shaw, who, with Quebecor's Videotron, set off this process by suspending payments to the CTF in December 2006, had refused on Monday to appear before the CRTC panel because Konrad von Finckenstein, chair of the broadcast regulator, was not helming the hearings.

That left a number of senior deputies to testify against the CTF. Shaw Communications has proposed the CRTC eliminate the requirement that satellite and cable TV companies contribute to the CTF, which has funded domestic television productions for more than a decade.

"We believe that the CTF is a failure," Ken Stein, Shaw's senior vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs, testified on Thursday.

"The process to address that failure has taken far too long," he continued, before adding that any attempt to fix the current fund would be "doomed."

"We think it's very telling that the CTF gets excited about the few occasions when a CTF-funded show actually cracks the Top 30 or when a CTF-funded private broadcaster's show makes it into the Top 100," Stein said.

"These are rare events."

Quebecor officials, who testified after Shaw, criticized the CTF as a "straitjacket." But in a departure from Shaw's ideas, the Montreal-based firm called for the CRTC to allow it to opt out of contributing to the CTF so it could directly fund the production of Canadian content via its own programming fund.

Public, private funding shouldn't mix: Lavoie

Quebecor also blasted the CTF's current structure for having private and public broadcasters compete for the same funding.

"Trying to mix private broadcasters and state broadcasters will never work," said Luc Lavoie, the company's executive vice-president of corporate affairs.

"We're two different animals; so different that when you mix the two, you're trying to accomplish something we think is not fair."

Representatives from CanWest MediaWorks also testified on Thursday and defended its current achievements in the production and broadcast of Canadian productions.

Creating domestic hits can take "several seasons to have a ripple effect," said Christine Shipton, senior vice-president of drama and factual content. She added that after a few low years, CanWest, CTV and the CBC have all launched successful dramas and sitcoms recently.

"We don't set out to make mediocre shows," she said, alluding to earlier critical comments from the Shaw camp. "We intend to make hit shows. They just don't always 'hit.'"

The hearings continue Friday, with representatives from CTVglobemedia and the Canadian Television Fund slated to testify.