Television Program Logs

Submitting Program Logs

Licensees are required - by Regulations - to maintain, in a form acceptable to the Commission, a program log or machine readable record of programming (to be referred to collectively as a program log).

Except as otherwise provided under a condition of licence, licensees are required to furnish to the Commission, within 30 days after the end of each month, a program log for the month, with a letter of attestation certifying the accuracy of the contents of the program log.

A letter of attestation should contain the following language and information:

• The program log for (insert Station Name), (insert Month) (insert Year) has been submitted via the WEB.
• “This is to certify that the undersigned has inspected the foregoing station logs. According to the information supplied to me and to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, the logs represent a true and accurate picture of the station’s operation of the month in question.”
• If there are any problems related to the data format, please contact (insert name of contact) at (insert telephone number) or by e-mail at (insert email address).

The requirements with respect to program logs may be found within the following Regulations:

• Television Broadcasting Regulations (Section 10, Schedules I and II)
• Discretionary Services Regulations (Section 8, Schedules I and II)

The Regulations do not describe in detail in which format the program logs need to be submitted, but they require a specific coding for data (see the Schedules referenced above).

Information Required Prior to Submitting Program Logs

When a licensee begins broadcasting for the first time, it is required to provide the following information prior to submitting its program logs, unless exempted from submitting program logs:

• With respect to a contact for regulatory affairs *:
  • Name of the individual and his or her complete title
  • Complete mailing address
  • Phone and fax number
  • Email address

* Should this contact information change, the licensee must submit the updated information to the TV Logs group.

• With respect to the undertaking:
  • Launch date/date the service first broadcast
  • Broadcast day schedule *
  • Log reporting day **
  • Identifier for specialty and pay services/call sign for conventional stations

* Broadcast day: Unless otherwise specified by condition of licence, a broadcast day means a period of up to 18 consecutive hours, beginning each day not earlier than 6 o’clock in the morning and ending not later than 1 o’clock in the morning of the following day, as selected by the licensee.

** Log reporting day: Each broadcaster must choose a time that will be used as the absolute beginning and ending of each log reporting day based on a 24 hour period. This will be the time at which the date changes in the log.

Once the above information has been confirmed, a User ID and password are generated to provide the licensee with access to the TV Logs Filing Website.

Send any request for further information or questions to the TV Logs group.

Exceptions to the Rule

Some programming undertakings have been exempted from the provision of program logs. The following is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather identifies the most common undertakings that have been relieved from program log obligations.

A. Video-on-Demand Undertakings (VOD)

Recognizing that VOD undertakings do not schedule their programs, the Commission requires, by condition of licence, that VOD undertakings maintain, for a period of one year, and submit to the Commission upon request, a detailed list of the inventory available on each file server, identifying each program by programming category and by country of origin, and indicating the period of time that each program was on the server and available to subscribers.¹

In addition, the Commission identified in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-190 additional aggregate data that it would request at the time of licence renewal of a VOD.

B. Pay-per-View Undertakings (PPV)

In Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2006-128, the Commission announced that PPV licensees could apply for a condition of licence that would exempt them from the requirement to provide program logs, subject to the licensee's commitment to adhere to a condition of licence requiring the following:

it maintain for a period that includes the current broadcast year and the immediately preceding broadcast year ending 31 August, and to submit to the Commission, upon request, a detailed list of programs broadcast on each channel. The list must identify each program broadcast; its key figures; its programming category; if the program is an event; the language of the program; if it is Canadian or non-Canadian; if captioning is available; if it is produced by the licensee; and the times and dates of broadcast.

The Commission also maintained the requirement for PPV licensees to maintain audio-visual recordings of their programming for a period of four weeks from the period of broadcast, or longer upon notification from the Commission.

C. Exempt Third-language Television Undertakings

Under Appendix 2 of Broadcasting Order CRTC 2012-689, the commission has exempted from regulation those television programming category B undertakings that provide programming in third-language with the exception of those in the Cantonese, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin and Spanish languages. 

• List of exempt Category B and exempt third-language services

By condition of licence, the third-language undertakings must retain a clear and intelligible audio-visual recording of all of its programming for a period of four weeks following the date of broadcast, and must provide this to the Commission on such terms as the Commission may request.

D. Community – Low Power Remote Stations

In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2010-622, the Commission announced that it was prepared to allow relief for the logging requirements set out in section 10 of the Television Broadcasting Regulations, upon application from licensees of community-based television undertakings serving remote areas.

A remote community-based television station is defined as a community-based television programming undertaking serving a community that has no competing regional or local television service or local community cable operating on a regular basis.

Troubleshooting and Support

• In which format should program logs be submitted?
• Where should program logs be submitted?
• Where are the key figures found?
• Where can a list of Canadian Program Certification numbers be found?
• How to proceed when the Canadian program certification number is not available?
• What is an interstitial and how should it be identified in the program logs?
• Forgotten password or User ID?

In which format should program logs be submitted?

You are required to submit program log files in a .txt format and the txt file must be compressed using one of the following software:

• PKZIP/WINZIP
• PKARC
• ARJ

The .txt file and the compressed file must both be named using the following naming convention: “CallSignYYMM”.

The following are examples of how the naming convention should be used:

Example 1:

Family Channel; December 2000; PKZIP/WINZIP used for compression

• Program Log File: FAMILY0012.txt
• Compressed File: FAMILY0012.zip

Example 2:

CFTO-TV; January 2005; PKARC used for compression

• Program Log File: CFTO0501.txt
• Compressed File:CFTO0501.arc

Example 3:

TSN; September 2004; ARJ used for compression

• Program Log File: TSN0409.txt
• Compressed File:TSN0409.arj

Note: You must provide a valid e-mail address to receive the automated CRTC error report.

Where should program logs be submitted?

All TV program logs should be submitted through the TV Logs Filing Website

Important - As of January 1st 2019, the system for submitting TV logs prior to September 2018 has been locked. It is no longer possible to submit logs prior to September 2018.

For more information please refer to the information at the top of the page on Submitting Program Logs.

Where are the key figures found?

• For conventional television, the key figure can be found under Schedule 1 of the Television Broadcasting Regulation, 1987
• For discretionary services, the key figure can be found under Schedule 1 of the Discretionary Services Regulations

Where can a list of Canadian Program Certification numbers be found?

You can find the list on the CRTC website under the Canadian Program Certification section.

How to proceed when the Canadian program certification number is not available?

Broadcasters are responsible for ensuring that all programs logged as Canadian have the required Canadian program certification number, whether it is a Canadian program certification number issued by the Commission or one issued by the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO) of the Department of Canadian Heritage and the National Film Board (NFB).

In all cases where the Canadian program certification number is unavailable (ie. Production company no longer exists and never applied for a certification number), broadcasters are required to log the program as non-Canadian.

Missing or unavailable Canadian program certification numbers will not be not accepted as a legitimate explanation of non-compliance with Canadian content obligations.

What is an interstitial and how should it be identified in the program logs?

Interstitials (program category 12) are programs with a running time of less than five minutes, exclusive of advertising and other interstitial material. Interstitials consist of material that could be described under program categories 2 to 11, but because of the program length, cannot be logged under those categories.

See Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2010-808 for definitions of the program categories.

• When interstitials are inserted within long form programs (programs with a running time of more than five minutes), the program class for the interstitials may be either PGR or SEG
• The time devoted to a long form program includes the duration of the advertising material that is inserted:
  • Within the program;
  • Between the end of the program and the beginning of the following program.
• Music video clips that meet the music video clip criteria, but that are less than five minutes in duration, must be logged as interstitials (category 12)

For further information, please refer to Circular No. 434 or contact the TV Logs group.

Forgotten password or User ID?

Contact the TV Logs group.

Note:

[1] Public Notice CRTC 1997-83 and Public Notice CRTC 2000-172 and Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-190

Date modified:

2019-01-17