Ban on cable ownership of specialty TV channels challenged at BCE-CTV hearing

The cable industry will use next week’s hearing into BCE Inc’s takeover of CTV Inc to challenge a moratorium that prevents cablecos from owning more analog specialty channels. The Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) says its largest members – Rogers Communications Inc and Shaw Cablesystems Inc – are being singled out by a regulator that seems to have no qualms in letting other broadcast distributors own specialty and pay TV channels. "It’s bizarre when any company in Canada can own analog specialty channels except two: Rogers and Shaw," CCTA president/CEO Janet Yale told CCR. "We’re getting into a world where it’s not really a policy, it’s really a discriminatory approach about who can own what." The CRTC’s hearing into the BCE-CTV acquisition, which begins Monday in Hull QC, provides an obvious opportunity for the CCTA to argue its case. CTV currently owns 10 specialty and pay TV channels, including The Sports Network, The Comedy Network and Discovery Channel Canada. It also has equity interests in Viewers Choice Canada and History Television, and has applications before the CRTC for 28 new digital TV licences. BCE’s purchase of CTV would make it, and its subsidiary Bell ExpressVu, one of the largest owners of specialty licences in Canada. "If the largest distributor of digital services can own all that content, I think we should admit the policy (against cableco ownership of specialty channels) has outlived its usefulness," says Yale. "(BCE is) the largest distributor of digital TV, the largest Internet company, the largest wireless services provider, the largest provider of local telephone services, the dominant long distance company… It’s hard to believe that cable’s big compared to that." In an August letter to the CRTC, Rogers asks for a review of the issue. Rogers is anxious to apply for a sports channel to capitalize on its purchase of the Toronto Blue Jays. "In our view, (the policy) is inconsistent with the trend toward integration and convergence which is occurring on a global scale in the communications and information technology sectors," Rogers writes. Yale agrees. "Our view, as an industry, is that this kind of consolidation is inevitable... you can’t just be in the carriage business or the content business. You have to have an integrated approach that really allows you to leverage your core but move out into related lines of business, to really capture the opportunities that are presented by the Internet and the new economy." The CRTC introduced a policy prohibiting further cross-ownership between cablecos and analog specialty channels to ensure Canada’s largest cablecos did not give preferential treatment to their own services on the channel dial. Yale says the commission could deal with such undue preference issues through regulations governing channel placement and marketing. She points to the deregulation of long distance, and the CRTC’s rules that allowed Bell to stay in the long distance market, but with regulations to prevent unfair preference. "What are they (the CRTC) afraid of? They’re afraid that if we own analog specialty channels, the cable companies will give them preferential placement, marketing packages, that kind of thing. Let’s come up with some rule to address the kinds of preferences they’re worried about," she says. "The specialties are all launched, they all have channel placements, so if a cable company wants to buy some existing analog services that are already launched, that have a channel position on the dial, what are we so afraid of?" The CRTC is expected to spend only two or three days on the BCE-CTV hearing. More than 3,000 supporting interventions have been filed, and no major interest groups are opposed to the takeover. Supporters of the deal include most of the country’s major TV and internet content producers, several high-profile politicians, lobbyists, academics, and private citizens. The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are also somewhat supportive of the merger. Most supporters cite Bell’s benefit package as a major plus (CCR, July 19/00).

Ban on cable ownership of specialty TV channels challenged at BCE-CTV hearing

Broadcast | September 14, 2000

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