The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the Commission, or CRTC) will hold public hearings this fall into the country's satellite TV and direct-to- home broadcast policies and regulations.
The Commission wants to address matters relating the country's transition to digital TV, local television access and broadcast commercial substitution, all of which have been controversial issues for the broadcast and telecom regulator.
The CRTC currently provides a framework for the DTH distribution of conventional TV stations to subscribers, and the manner in which DTH distribution uses simultaneous commercial substitution.
Two licensed direct-to-home broadcast distribution satellite services currently operate in Canada: Bell TV and Shaw Direct.
Each operates under a licence that allows them to transport broadcasting programming services from where they originate to other BDUs - such as cable BDUs - which, in turn, sell these services to their subscribers.
Although their DTH and SRDU services are licensed separately, Bell TV and Shaw Direct use the same facilities, i.e., satellites, ground stations and other facilities, to offer both types of services.
This means that choices made or actions taken with respect to one type of service frequently have an impact on the other.
The Commission recently licensed a third DTH service - FreeHD Canada - to provide both DTH and SRDU services, but it says it has not yet received notification that FreeHD's DTH or SRDU services are in operation.
The CRTC also has enacted regulation that, in 2011, will force the satellite companies to carry more conventional stations, including local channels not owned by the major networks.
In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2010-167, the Commission published its determinations with respect to a new policy governing its licensing of conventional television stations and a number of related matters. During the proceeding that culminated in that Regulatory Policy, television licensees and other parties raised concerns regarding the current policy framework for DTH services and the new requirements set out in Broadcasting Public Notice 2008-100 that will come into effect on 1 September 2011.
In particular, these concerns focussed on:
- the conventional television stations that DTH distributors are required to offer to their subscribers; and
- the manner in which DTH distributors perform simultaneous substitution.
In establishing its policy framework for DTH distribution of conventional television stations, the Commission has attempted to balance at least three factors:
- the importance of DTH distribution for television stations;
- ensuring that DTH subscribers are offered a diverse array of programming that is comparable to that offered by terrestrial BDUs, including not only television stations, but pay and specialty services as well as other services; and
- the technical constraints of DTH licensees.
Through a combination of the provisions set out in the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations (the Regulations) and their various conditions of licence, the Commission currently requires each DTH licensee to distribute at least the following conventional television stations:
- one television station affiliate of each nationally-licensed television network; and
- a minimum of five CBC English- and five CBC French-language stations, including one from each time zone; or at least as many English- or French-language CBC stations as it distributes from a particular English- or French-language private broadcasting group.
The Commission announced that, effective 1 September 2011, requirements to distribute conventional television stations would be increased. As of 1 September 2011, DTH licensees will be required to distribute one television station per province from each major Canadian broadcasting ownership group.[1]
The Commission augmented the future distribution requirements of DTH licensees by announcing that, as of 1 September 2011, they will also be required to distribute two stations from each Canadian broadcasting ownership group that is not one of the major groups.
However, in the proceeding that concluded in Regulatory Policy 2010-167, as well as in a number of other past proceedings, conventional television licensees have generally argued that DTH distribution is imperative to the operation of conventional television stations and proposed that DTH licensees be required to distribute all conventional television stations on a "local-into-local" basis, i.e., every local station should be distributed to DTH subscribers within at least their local market. In their view, local-into-local distribution is essential to ensure the integrity of their signals since DTH licensees serve a significant number of subscribers in each market.
For their part, DTH licensees have consistently maintained that distribution of all television stations on a local-into-local basis is not feasible for a variety of reasons and could prevent them from continuing to offer services that are competitive with those of terrestrial BDUs.
Section 42 of the Regulations requires DTH licensees to replace the signal of a non-Canadian television service with the signal of a Canadian television service when the two services are showing the same program at the same time. This is known as simultaneous substitution and occurs at the request of the licensee of a Canadian television service.
As part of its policies regarding distribution of digital and high definition (HD) programming services set out in Broadcasting Public Notices 2003-61 and 2006-74, the Commission has determined that BDUs are only required to perform simultaneous substitution when the signal of the service requesting simultaneous substitution is of similar or better quality than the signal that it is replacing. This means, for example, that a Canadian television station can only request simultaneous substitution over an HD program in a US signal if the Canadian station also broadcasts the program in HD.
Simultaneous substitution and, simultaneous substitution of HD programming in particular, is often the subject of complaints to the Commission by DTH subscribers and by broadcasters. In the proceeding that concluded in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2010-167, a number of broadcasters raised concerns with respect to the manner in which DTH licensees perform simultaneous substitution. In particular, broadcasters were concerned with Bell TV's practice of performing simultaneous substitution for only one local station at a time over any given non-Canadian programming service. This means that most of its subscribers receive substituted programming from a television station operating outside of their community (instead of programming from the non-Canadian service) regardless of whether or not there is a local station broadcasting the same programming in their community.[2]
In preparation for this proceeding, the Commission has requested that DTH licensees submit certain information related to their current and future satellite capacity as well as other aspects of their operations. All of the information submitted by these licensees, except that which the Commission has designated confidential, will be placed on the public file of this proceeding and will be available on the Commission's website at www.crtc.gc.ca under "Public Proceedings" as "Related Documents."
Parties submitting interventions in this proceeding may wish to make use of this information in formulating their comments.
The hearings begin 16 November 2010 at 9:00 a.m. at the Conference Centre, Phase IV, 140 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau, Quebec
The deadline for filing written comments is 8 September 2010.
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