Media groups vow to fight CRTC’s OMNI decision

Two media groups have filed formal petitions to the Governor in Council, asking the government to reverse a CRTC decision that gave Rogers Communications Inc. a second term to have its OMNI channel as required broadcasting on basic TV. The decision from May rejected the applications of Corrcan Media Group, publisher of Toronto-based Italian-language newspaper Corriere Canadese, and Montreal-based Independent Community Television, as well as five other applications, for the coveted licence that requires BDUs to carry the sole ethnic channel on their skinny basic packages. This week, the two denied applicants filed formal petitions to federal cabinet, with the ICTV even requesting that CRTC chairman Ian Scott and vice-chair of broadcasting Caroline Simard, be fired from their positions. Scott and Simard, ICTV’s petition says, met with BCE Inc. and Rogers during the hearing process and allege the meetings “give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias,” citing paragraph 3(1)(d)(i) of the Broadcasting Act, which says that the Canadian broadcasting system should “serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada.” The petition points to the termination of commissioner Raj Shoan as precedent, saying that his firing in 2016 showed that “inappropriate stakeholder meetings were grounds for termination of an appointment.” “This, in itself, gives the public reasons to mistrust the CRTC or question its decisions,” ICTV CEO Laith Marouf said in a phone interview with The Wire Report. ICTV has also filed a request to appeal the commission's decision in the Federal Court of Appeal, citing similar reasons, including reasonable apprehension of bias arising from meetings between commissioners and Rogers and Bell. In a letter, accompanying the petition, to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Corrcan’s vice-president of regulatory affairs Jean Brazeau said the CRTC’s decision is “an affront to the concept of respect for the integrative process lived by newer Canadians, disdainful to the concept of Multiculturalism as a reflection of the Canadian reality, and defiant of the procedural fairness Canadians might expect in the mechanisms outlined in calls for proposals.” “It’s a long shot…. There is always reluctance -- show a lot of deference to the CRTC -- to reverse any CRTC decision,” Brazeau said in a phone interview with the Wire Report, in reference to Corrcan’s petition. In its original ruling, the CRTC wrote that Rogers’ proposed service “best meets the needs and interests of Canada’s diverse population and the criteria established by the Commission.” The CRTC had also identified a number of problems with the service, including a lack of original programming, not enough time for newscasts, and no programming that was relevant to each region of the country. As a condition of the renewal of its license, Rogers has committed to spend 60 per cent of OMNI Regional’s previous year’s gross revenues on the production of original, first-run programs; five per cent of the previous years gross revenues on original and first-run programs of national interest. Specifically with regards to news programming, Rogers agreed to broadcast at least six hours of local, original, first-run news every week, in addition to a further six original, first-run, national 30-minutes newscasts, seven days a week, in six different languages. The CRTC granted Rogers a temporary license for three years to operate OMNI back in 2017. The current renewal will run until 2023, and will allow Rogers to increase its wholesale rate from $0.12 to $0.19 per subscriber. The renewal of the license represents a massive turnaround for OMNI property, after the company faced a “financial crisis” in 2014, leading to job cuts, and pushback from unions and from MPs. Rogers then promised to restore some of the cuts it had made if the CRTC allowed it to become a not-for-profit with mandatory carriage status, with revenue derived from subscriber fees, rather than advertising, a request to which the CRTC acquiesced. The Governor in Council, to whom the petition is addressed, has 90 days from the date of the original CRTC decision to respond to the petitions. The Governor in Council has the power to set aside the CRTC’s decision or refer it back to the regulator.

Media groups vow to fight CRTC’s OMNI decision

Brief | June 25, 2019

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Media groups vow to fight CRTC’s OMNI decision

Brief | June 25, 2019

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