Quebecor Media Believes That the CRTC Must Reject the Applications by CTV Limited in Order to Obtain Regulatory Relief for the "
July 12 2010 - 1:17PM
Marketwired
Quebecor Media Inc. believes that the CRTC must reject the
applications by CTV Limited in order to obtain regulatory relief
for the "A" stations and for the CTV Network or apply the requested
conditions to all Canadian conventional television stations.
Specifically, CTV has asked, among other things, that the
Commission eliminate all exhibition requirements relating to
priority programming including the condition requiring that 75% of
this priority programming must be produced by independent
producers, reduce overall Canadian content exhibition requirements
to 55% of the broadcast year and suspend the current requirement
that 50% of required hours of described video be original
broadcasts. Moreover, CTV has also applied to reduce overall
Canadian content exhibition requirements for all its local stations
part of the CTV Network.
CTV was fully aware of the implications of its actions when the
company acquired the "A" stations in 2007 as part of the CHUM
Limited purchase, depriving therefore other parties interested in
operating these stations in accordance with the regulations and
their current conditions of license and thereby preventing
Canadians from having access to a broader diversity of voices.
If the CRTC has the intention to grant CTV the requested
regulatory flexibility, the other Canadian conventional television
stations should also be able to obtain similar conditions, since,
as CTV stated in its application, the fee for value regime for
over-the-air television stations will not come into force before
many years, if indeed such a regime is put into place.
Even if the Broadcasting Act stipulates that English and French
language broadcasting operate under different conditions and may
have different requirements and that the Regulatory Policy should
be readily adaptable to the different characteristics of English
and French language broadcasting, it's obvious that when it comes
to the protection of the Canadian Content, which represents the
primary objective of the Broadcasting Policy for Canada, the
Commission, in its wisdom, should not discriminate between English
and French language broadcasting.
As a reminder, TVA must broadcast 60% of Canadian content per
year and eight (8) hours of priority programming per week, of which
75% must be produced by independent producers.
Therefore, based on the most elementary notion of fairness,
Quebecor Media states that the CRTC must reject CTV's application
or apply the requested conditions to all Canadian conventional
television stations.
Quebecor Media Inc. is a subsidiary of Quebecor Inc. (TSX:
QBR.A, QBR.B), a communications company with operations in North
America, Europe and Asia. Quebecor Media owns operating companies
in numerous media-related businesses: Videotron Ltd., an integrated
communications company engaged in cable television, interactive
multimedia development, Internet access services, cable telephony
and wireless telephone service; Sun Media Corporation, the largest
publisher of newspapers in Canada; Canoe.ca., operator of a network
of English and French language Internet properties in Canada;
Quebecor Media Network, provider of flyer printing and distribution
services; TVA Group Inc., operator of the largest French language
over the air television network in Quebec, a number of specialty
channels, and the English language over the air station Sun TV;
Nurun Inc., a major interactive technologies and communications
agency with offices in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia;
magazine publisher TVA Publishing Inc.; book publishers and
distributors Sogides Group Inc. and CEC Publishing Inc.;
Archambault Group Inc. and TVA Films, companies engaged in the
production, distribution and retailing of cultural products; Le
SuperClub Videotron ltee, a DVD and console game rental and retail
chain; and Quebecor MediaPages, publisher of print and online
directories.
Contacts: Quebecor Media Inc. J. Serge Sasseville Vice
President, Corporate and Institutional Affairs 514-380-1864
serge.sasseville@quebecor.com
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