Must Carry Means Must Carry: Super Channel to CRTC

Super Channel, Canada’s national pay television network, appeared before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in order to highlight what it calls the inequity in minority language rights regulations.

The western Canada-based pay service used its own experiences in Quebec to illustrate its presentation.

“Despite repeated attempts there remains only one major market where we are not readily available to Canadian consumers and that is Quebec,” said Malcolm Knox, Super Channel President and COO.

“This is a significant handicap considering this large English-language population is concentrated in a number of key markets – including greater Montreal and the Outaouais – all controlled by Videotron.”

Videotron has control of over 85 per cent of potential terrestrial subscribers in Quebec and is not carrying Super Channel saying the existing rules regarding Canadian services in minority language markets don’t require them to distribute even “must carry” services.

“It’s interesting to note that Videotron’s parent company, Quebecor, applied at the same time as Super Channel for an English- and French-language pay television service. Had they been awarded licences it is hard to believe they would not have been carrying both services on Videotron,” said Knox. “We are here today because the Commission gave us – Super Channel - a `must carry’ national premium television service licence a little over two years ago and we are still not able to reach consumers in one of the largest markets of the country.”

The Quebec market includes close to 8 million consumers (23 per cent of the national population) - an estimated 1.5 to 2 million of which are Anglophones and Allophones.

The hearings are looking at issues related to:

• the availability and quality of French- and English-language broadcasting services in French and English linguistic minority communities
• the challenge of providing, in those communities, broadcasting services in both official languages and their availability across all broadcasting platforms and distribution systems, and
• measures to encourage and facilitate access to the widest range of broadcasting services in both official languages in French and English linguistic minority communities in Canada.

The Federal government asked the CRTC last June to report on the French-language broadcasting services in markets with an English-speaking majority, and English-language broadcasting services where French is spoken by the majority. The Commission was also asked to identify the challenges facing these communities from a broadcasting perspective.