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Decision
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Ottawa, 6 April 1989
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Decision CRTC 89-154
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Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
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Charlottetown, St. Edward/St. Louis and Elmira, Prince Edward Island -881266100
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Following a Public Hearing in Halifax on 6 December 1988, the Commission renews the broadcasting licences for CBCT Charlottetown and its rebroadcasters at St. Edward/St. Louis and Elmira from 1 September 1989 to 31 August 1994, subject to the conditions specified in the appendix to this decision and in the licences to be issued.
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CBCT Charlottetown is owned and operated by the CBC and, for the most part, broadcasts the programming of the CBC English-language television network. The CBC has committed to broadcast, during the new licence term, 5 hours per week of locally-produced news and information programming on CBCT. In this regard, the Commission notes that the station's current program schedule includes a weekday current affairs program. The Commission expects CBCT to broadcast, at a minimum throughout the new licence term, the weekly amount of original local productions set out in its Promise of Performance.
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According to the financial projections provided with its renewal application, CBC will spend $2,107,000 on Canadian programming for CBCT in the first year of the new licence term. The Commission notes that this amount is allocated for CBCT's local productions.
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The Commission notes the Corporation's intention during the new licence term, to make available on each owned-and-operated television station of the English-language network an additional half-hour per week for local production in the evening broadcast period and to produce and broadcast a local entertainment program. It encourages the CBC to explore various means of increasing the level of its regional programming and of diversifying its local productions as resources become available.
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In renewing these licences, the Commission also authorizes the CBC to make use of the Vertical Blanking Interval. The Commission expects the CBC to adhere to the guidelines set out in Appendix A to Public Notice CRTC 1989-23 dated 23 March 1989 entitled "Services Using the Vertical Blanking Interval (Television) or Subsidiary Communications Multiplex Operation (FM)".
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While the renewal application made no specific commitments to close caption local productions, the Commission encourages CBCT, at a minimum, to provide its deaf and hearing-impaired viewers with access to local news headlines through captions (open or closed) or signing during the new licence term.
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It also expects CBCT, during the first year of the new licence term, to acquire a telephone device for the deaf (TDD) and install it wherever is most appropriate, such as in the master control room, to ensure access to the station by deaf and hearing-impaired viewers over the entire broadcast day.
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An intervention which was received from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) expressing concerns about the mandate of CBC regional stations, is addressed in the Public Notice released today introducing this and other television renewal decisions.
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Fernand Bélisle
Secretary General
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APPENDIX
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Conditions of licence for CBCT Charlottetown and its rebroadcasters CBCT-1 St. Edward/St. Louis and CBCT-2 Elmira
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1. The licensee shall adhere to the CBC guidelines on sex-role stereotyping, as amended from time to time and approved by the Commission. Until such time as the Commission has approved the revised CBC guidelines, the CBC shall adhere to its current guidelines on sex-role stereotyping (as set out in Part C of Appendix A to Public Notice CRTC 1986-351 dated 22 December 1986) and, as a minimum, to the CAB's guidelines on sex-role stereotyping, as amended from time to time and approved by the Commission.
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2. The licensee shall adhere to the standards for children's advertising set out in the Corporation's Advertising Standards Policy C-5 dated 4 June 1986 and entitled "Advertising Directed to Children Under 12 Years of Age", as amended from time to time and approved by the Commission, provided that the policy meets, as a minimum, the standards set out in the CAB's The Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children, revised in January 1988, as amended from time to time and approved by the Commission.
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Further, the licensee shall not broadcast any commercial message during any child-directed programming or any child-directed commercial message between programs directed to children of pre-school age. For the purpose of this condition, programs directed to children and scheduled before 12:00 noon during school-day morning hours will be deemed to be programs directed to children of pre-school age.
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