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ARCHIVED -  Decision CRTC 94-77

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Decision

Ottawa, 9 March 1994
Decision CRTC 94-77
Canadian Satellite Communications Inc. (CANCOM)
Toronto, Ontario - 931266100
Pursuant to Public Notice CRTC 1993-152 dated 5 November 1993, the Commission approves the application to amend the broadcasting licence to carry on a multiple channel television and radio broadcasting distribution undertaking, by adding the signal of CITY-TV Toronto to the list of signals that CANCOM is authorized to distribute. In addition, the list of "Part III Eligible Canadian Satellite Services", released today in Public Notice CRTC 1994-22, has been revised accordingly.
Tee-Comm Electronics (Tee-Com) and Regional Cablesystems Inc. (Regional) submitted interventions to this application which, while not specifically opposing the application, expressed concerns with the proposal.
In its intervention, Tee-Comm expressed the concern that CANCOM has not committed to making this new service available to and compatible with the Canadian direct-to-home (DTH) market.
In response, CANCOM indicated that it is committed to achieving a compatible solution, and that any non-compatible equipment used by CANCOM will be upgraded when an industry standard is agreed upon. Regional's intervention raised the concern that CANCOM's application is not complete because results of the CANCOM DTH service were not included in the filing of CANCOM's non-regulated business.
In its response to the intervention, CANCOM argued that the DTH service is properly included in the regulated business because its authority to participate in the DTH market derives from the licence to distri-bute signals via satellite. CANCOM further noted that its DTH service has no relevance to the issue of distributing CITY-TV, and that public disclosure of the financial details of the DTH service could have a negative effect on CANCOM.
The Commission is satisfied with the licensee's response to the concerns raised in the Tee-Com and Regional interventions.
Interventions submitted by New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. Limited (NBB), CanWest Global Communications Corp. (CanWest) and The Movie Network (TMN) were opposed to specific aspects of the application.
The intervention by NBB expressed the concern that a significant portion of CITY-TV's programming is available in the Maritime region on its MITV stations. NBB stated that audience fragmentation due to duplicated programming would cause financial harm to MITV.
In a similar vein, TMN argued that approving this application would place CITY-TV in a competing position with TMN and other national broadcasters, leading to serious audience fragmentation.
In its replies to NBB and TMN, CANCOM stated that the addition of CITY-TV is intended to benefit mainly Part III and small Class 2 licensees that would be able to add the service without submitting an application to the Commission. In the case of a Class 1 or a larger Class 2 system, an application to the Commission requesting approval to distribute the CITY-TV signal in that market would be necessary. Such an application would lead to a public process, through which any concerns on the part of licensees of programming undertakings could be taken into account.
The interventions by CanWest and TMN both raise the issue of CITY-TV having entered into an agreement with Warner Bros. Canada to obtain rights for certain programming packages. CanWest and TMN expressed the concern that CITY-TV's access to such programming would place pay television licensees at a disadvantage.
In its response to this concern, CANCOM stated that when CITY-TV acquires rights for movie packages, it regularly offers pay television licensees the opportunity to exhibit the movies from those packages in advance of television exhibition. CANCOM further stated that CITY-TV will be distributed mainly by the Part III and small Class 2 systems, most of which do not offer pay television services.
The Commission has taken into account the views of the applicant and the interveners in these matters. It notes that Part III licensees and Class 2 licensees wih fewer than 2,000 subscribers serve approximately 8% of Canadian subscribers. Furthermore, the Commission's distant signals policy as set out in Public Notice CRTC 1985-61 and reiterated in Public Notice CRTC 1993-74 is applicable to all other cable licensees wishing to distribute CITY-TV. In such cases, application to the Commission would be required, and concerned parties would have an opportunity to intervene in specific cases. For the above reasons, the Commission has determined that approval of this application by CANCOM is warranted. The Commission also acknowledges the numerous interventions submitted in support of this application.
Allan J. Darling
Secretary General

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