Misgivings expressed over proposed TV-service code

A number of Canadian broadcast distributors have taken issue with aspects of the CRTC’s proposed code governing the relationship between TV providers and their customers, including the requirement that distributors must notify customers when a channel changes its terms of service. In interventions that had to be filed by Monday, Telus Corp. called that notification proposal a “bizarre requirement,” adding that there is “no reciprocal requirement for channels to alert TVSPs of any programming changes.” “A TVSP has no control over a channel’s business decisions and often has no advance knowledge of a channel’s decision to rebrand or otherwise change its nature of service,” it said. The CRTC proposed the code in March in the final decision of its Let’s Talk TV proceeding. In its filing, Rogers Communications Inc. said distributors are often given “little or no notice” of changes to a channel’s nature of service or even the decision to eliminate a channel. For instance, when Sun News Network stopped broadcasting, Rogers was not made aware the channel was stopping service until 5 a.m. on the day it occurred, it said. Rogers added that, given the CRTC’s recent elimination of genre protection rules, “we expect there will be more channels changing their nature of service or discontinuing service all together.” Rogers said broadcasters should be responsible for notifying customers of such changes. Shaw Communications Inc. said that requirement “is unworkable and should be deleted.” Like Telus and Shaw, Rogers questioned a proposed requirement that distributors promote their entry-level basic packages “in a like manner” as the “first-tier offering.” Rogers wrote that distributors should be “provided with flexibility in how they market and promote their service offerings.” It added: “In a video service market that is only getting more competitive with the entry of a growing number of regulated and unregulated options, the promotion of our new entry-level basic service and flexible packaging options will happen naturally as BDUs attempt to keep their customers from downgrading or cancelling service in favour of another BDU and/or over-the-top (OTT) alternatives.” BCE Inc. was also among those that took issue with that requirement, and, like Rogers, with the CRTC’s suggestion to limit service calls to a four-hour window. Both companies said that wouldn’t be feasible everywhere, with Rogers specifically citing remote and rural areas as a challenge. Bell also criticized one of the options the CRTC proposed regarding changes to a customers’ service. It stated the company opposes “the mandated, unrestricted right allowing a customer to change individual discretionary channels or packages of discretionary channels on demand.” Giving customers that right would “effectively force TVSPs into the business of selling individual television programs a la carte not simply individual channels,” Bell said. It argued such a rule would allow customers to add a channel for one night in order to watch a show that interests them, cancel the channel as soon as the program is over, and continue doing so every week. “If this kind of behaviour is allowed, it would effectively permit subscribers to turn linear programming services into a video-on-demand offering, at a fraction of the cost,” Bell said. “This is contrary to the underlying business model for linear television, which involves programming channels such that subscribers have access to a variety of attractive programs over an entire schedule. Moreover, in the event that a subscriber wants to only watch one program, there are many ways to do that within the regulated broadcasting system or over-the-top.” Shaw also brought up that issue, writing that due to “technical constraints and other considerations, it is simply not possible to implement a system by which customers can change packages on a daily or even weekly basis.” It also said that the CRTC’s wireless code “appears to be a major impetus” for the TV code, and that the CRTC should be cautious about “drawing inferences about the provider-customer relationship from the retail wireless market and applying them to the TVSP market.” The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS), which is responsible for enforcing the wireless code and whose powers, the CRTC has suggested, should be extended to the TV code, said in its intervention that the CRTC should be as precise as possible in the wording of the new regulations. The CCTS intervention said that “precision of drafting may result in the Code administrator being called upon less often to ‘interpret’ the provisions of the Code, both in order to apply the code to resolve complaints, and in determining whether the TVSP has breached the code. As the Commission is aware, this has been a somewhat contentious issue in connection with the Wireless Code.” For instance, there is a lack of clarity around whether the TV code applies to “non-institutional small business customers,” it said. The intervention also noted that the wireless code coming into force for different customers at different times “added tremendous complexity” to its administration. It recommended the CRTC roll out the new code at once, with “immediate applicability of all provisions to all customers.” The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) said the new code should be as consistent as possible with the wireless code, “to prevent customer confusion and ensure customers have appropriate protections for all of their communications services.” In its intervention, TekSavvy Solutions Inc. asked the CRTC for more clarity about whom the code will apply to. It said the CRTC’s definition of a television service provider “leaves some ambiguity with respect to its application” to over-the-air signals, OTT providers and licence-exempt broadcast distributors. “With respect to OTT, exempt digital media broadcasting undertakings arguably provide subscription television services to Canadians,” TekSavvy said, suggesting the CRTC substitute the term with “broadcast distribution undertaking, whether or exempt.” The deadline for replies is June 4. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Misgivings expressed over proposed TV-service code

Broadcast | May 26, 2015

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Misgivings expressed over proposed TV-service code

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