PIAC, FRPC demand strengthened CRTC participation fund

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications (FRPC) are urging the CRTC to come up with an interim plan to “stabilize the finances” of the Broadcasting Participation Fund as they anticipate a shortfall in money for the program in the years ahead. Both groups co-signed a Part 1 application filed with the commission Wednesday asking that the fund be strengthened until the federal government amends the Broadcasting Act under Bill C-10, at least until the act provides for the award of costs for public-interest participation in broadcast proceedings. “Without (the fund), the consumer voice on upcoming legislation on regulating internet speech, news, media mergers such as Rogers and Shaw, the CBC’s licences and the regulation of online shows will be silenced,” John Lawford, the PIAC’s executive director and general counsel, said in a release Wednesday. According to the Part 1, the $6.6 million Broadcasting Participation Fund was approved by the CRTC about ten years ago to facilitate consumer and public interest groups’ participation in its broadcast proceedings. Only public-interest organizations participating in telecom proceedings are able to seek reimbursement for costs of representation, research, and advocacy by collecting costs from participating respondents or license holders, which is why the broadcast fund was established, Lawford said in a phone interview with The Wire Report Wednesday. In the Part 1, the groups say there is $1 million left in the broadcast fund for claims yet to be made, and in the fund’s own annual report for 2020, it says it is at risk of running out within the next year and a half. The fund wrote that it had sent a letter to Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault asking for “bridge financing” to sustain operations until the new public consultation procedures proposed in the bill are put in place. “By the end of 2022, the BPF would be unable to fulfill its mandate which would likely result in its probable termination,” it said in the report. Lawford said Wednesday Bill C-10 “has a section that says the CRTC shall hold a proceeding after the bill is passed to set up broadcasting costing rules, same as a telecom.” “But the difficulty we have is getting from here to there. This will be low on the list of CRTC’s things to do if they’re setting up the regime under C-10 because as many people have pointed out, C-10 is pretty much a skeletal framework,” Lawford said. “So there’s a gap of two years where nobody will be able to do proceedings, including precisely those ones about how C-10 will be implemented, which is one of my real concerns. If it is a skeletal act, then the CRTC proceedings will matter an awful lot for the details.” The Part 1 application also outlines how the CRTC is reviewing its commercial radio policy, is in the midst of a proceeding on new regulations for accessibility, and intends to rewrite its policy for Indigenous broadcasting, in addition to the television programming licenses of “Canada’s largest ownership groups” ending in August 2022. Upcoming cost estimates included in the Part 1 anticipate $250,000 for proceedings involving CBC’s license applications, $15,000 for the accessibility regulations, $60,000 for the commercial radio review, and $30,000 for the Indigenous broadcast policy in 2021, in addition to $75,000 for the Rogers/Shaw deal and more in 2021/2022. The application says the fund has overall granted about 200 funding applications in whole or in part, denying about 20, and enabled 18 consumer and public-interest organizations to take part in 38 CRTC proceedings. It says the fund was born out of a joint proposal between PIAC and BCE Inc. as Bell applied to acquire control of CTV. The PIAC intervened asking that some of the transaction's tangible benefits for the broadcasting system go to establishing the fund, and the proposal was later approved, according to the application. Its $6.6 million in funding has so far come from percentages of up to 5 percent worth of tangible benefits payments connected to Bell’s CTV purchase and later its acquisition of Astral, totalling $245 million and $247 million in tangible benefits, respectively, as well as Sirius XM Canada’s change in ownership structure worth $28.7 million in tangible benefits. The PIAC and FRPC claim Sirius has made three of seven payments to the fund--the first two worth $500,000 each--and just 75 per cent of its fourth payment of $119,333, with the remaining identical payments due each year through 2024/25. In the fund’s annual report, it says Sirius reduced its Year 4 payment by almost $30,000 to $89,499 due to the pandemic. The two groups’ application suggests a few funding remedies to carry it through the next couple of years, such as requiring Sirius XM Canada to make its outstanding payments to the BPF, initiating a public proceeding to revise the CRTC’s regulations for radio and distribution programming services, and amending the tangible benefits policy to include ownership transactions involving profitable undertakings. “We’re looking for year-over-year predictable funding until this thing gets turned into a cost award regime,” Lawford said. Lawford said proceedings that involve tangible benefits have “kind of dried up, there’s nothing to put in.” Beyond that there aren’t tangible benefits payable when a BDU (broadcast distribution undertaking) is purchased rather than a broadcaster, “and there’s no real good policy reason for that.” The PIAC has dealt with requests for cost funding beyond its undertaking with Bell in 2011 by intervening in several other proceedings, such as when Bell and Shaw Communications Inc. each applied to acquire discretionary programming services, but this is the first time tackling it directly through a Part 1. – Reporting by Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

PIAC, FRPC demand strengthened CRTC participation fund

Broadcast | April 21, 2021

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PIAC, FRPC demand strengthened CRTC participation fund

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