CBC faces competition from Chum and Astral in bid for French arts channel

Cost and content will likely the overriding factors that determine whether the CBC or a joint bid by Chum Limited and Astral Media succeeds in winning a national licence for a French-language arts channel. The CRTC has begun its deliberations following a June 27 public hearing in Montreal, with a decision expected to follow later this year. For Radio-Canada, it was its second time before the CRTC on this issue. Its first application was rejected last May for proposing too high a wholesale fee (CCR, June 2/99). Surprisingly, its subsequent application was not significantly different. One difference, and one which was recommended by the CRTC in rejecting Radio-Canada’s initial bid, is the inclusion of new partners. The proposed channel, called La Tele des arts, now includes Tele-Quebec (25%) and L’Equipe Spectra (7%). The two new partners join the original partners Radio-Canada (37%), La Sept ARTE (15%) and BCE Media (16%). As with the first application, La Tele des arts is proposing a wholesale rate for cable distribution of 80 cents per subscriber, assuming 60 per cent penetration. Marc Sevigny, GM of strategic planning and communications at the CBC’s French TV network, stated late last year that the public broadcaster was looking at ways to bring in more partners and lower the cost of the arts channel. But at the hearings, Radio-Canada VP Michele Fortin said the addition of the new partners would translate into higher-quality programming but not a lower rate. Nonetheless, CRTC chair Françoise Bertrand’s concerns about the cost of the channel being prohibitive may have been only partly dispelled when the response to one of her questions was that attending a play or live performance could run more than $50 per person, an amount much higher than the proposed wholesale rate. According to a Barometre survey conducted for the CBC in March, 40 per cent of French-language cable households are interested in a specialty channel focusing on arts and culture. That percentage, CBC officials said, was higher than interest expressed for the four channels licensed by the CRTC when it rejected Radio-Canada’s first application. The survey aside, the CBC is projecting only a 0.5 per cent audience pickup in year one, increasing to 0.8 per cent by year seven. "Ever since positive optioning came into Quebec, the rate of take-up has been very low so we have to very careful to have at least enough funds to be able to do the minimum programming that we want to do," CBC chair Robert Rabinovitch told CCR during a break in the hearing. "We are trying to concentrate on our strategic advantages such as documentaries, investigative journalism and arts and entertainment. An arts channel such as this is critically important because it gives us a second window to enhance and meet our mandate." La Tele’s schedule would contain 40 per cent Canadian content per day and 45 per cent at night during the first year of broadcast. The figures would increase to 50 per cent for the entire day and 60 per cent at night by the seventh year. About $5.6 million was pledged for Canadian programming in year two of the licence. Radio-Canada is facing some stiff competition for a national arts channel. Moses Znaimer, VP development of Chum, said the Chum-Astral proposal is superior because it proposes a much lower wholesale rate of 49 cents, its planned "new style" arts programming would introduce the classic arts to the youth market, and it would provide competition in the French-Canada television market in the arts sector, which is currently dominated by Radio-Canada. Promo reels shown during the hearing illustrated the significantly different concepts the competing applicants envision for an arts channel. The CBC presentation showed clips of such things as the Montreal International Jazz Festival, sculptor Armand Vaillancourt and Lea Pool’s film "Emporte-moi" while the Chum-Astral video showed cows mooing to classical music.

CBC faces competition from Chum and Astral in bid for French arts channel

Broadcast | July 19, 2000

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