ARCHIVED - Decision CRTC 2000-68

1. The SRDU shall remain at all times an entity that is independent of, and legally separate and distinct from Shaw Communications Inc. (Shaw) and all companies or other entities controlled directly or indirectly by Shaw.

2. None of the licensee's board of directors shall be persons who are members of the board of directors of Shaw or any company or other entity controlled directly or indirectly by Shaw.

3. No employee of the SRDU licensee, or any individual providing services on a contractual basis to the SRDU licensee, shall, at the same time, be employed by any BDU (including a DTH BDU) that is controlled, directly or indirectly, by Shaw, or by any company or other entity controlled directly or indirectly by Shaw.

4. The licensee shall adhere to the provisions of section 4 of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations, in respect of any transfers of ownership or control.

5. To the extent the licensee is entitled to information in the possession of a BDU, pursuant to an affiliation agreement, and such information is not available on the public record, the licensee shall retain an independent third-party auditor to access such information and to ensure that only aggregate information and recommendations regarding the SRDU's compliance with the terms of the DTH/SRDU signal supply agreement are transmitted to the licensee.

6. The licensee is authorized to distribute via satellite to its affiliates, the television signals of any of the services listed in Appendix B to this decision, subject to the following requirements:

a) the licensee shall ensure that a majority of the television signals it distributes are Canadian services, and;

b) the licensee shall distribute the signals of all conventional, Canadian, French-language television services that purchase national program rights. These services exclude the French-language television network service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

For the purpose of this condition, non-Canadian services of the same affiliation will be counted as a single service.

7. The licensee must provide its service to all of the following undertakings whose operators are willing to enter into affiliation agreements with it:

i) terrestrial BDUs that are licensed by the Commission or operating in accordance with an exemption from licensing granted by the Commission; and,

ii) licensed DTH distribution undertakings (for retransmission to DTH subscribers only).

8. The licensee shall not delete, curtail or alter the programming services which it distributes to BDUs in any manner from the form in which they are transmitted for public reception by the originating broadcasters, except such alterations as are incidental to the transmission of the services using digital video compression technology and except as may be authorized or required by the Commission in writing.

9. The licensee is required to contribute a minimum of 5% of its annual gross revenues derived from broadcasting activities to the creation and presentation of Canadian programming.

10. The licensee is required to file a report for the Commission's approval, within three months of the date of this decision, identifying the recipient(s) of its contributions to the creation and presentation of Canadian programming, as well as the projected annual amounts that the licensee intends to allocate to each and the timing of such contributions, if the contribution is to a recipient other than a production fund. Contributions directed to a production fund are required to be made on a monthly basis, within 45 days of each month's end. As a matter of policy applicable to any licensed SRDU, the Commission has decided that funds allocated to subsidize the provision of decoder equipment to BDUs are not eligible contributions.

11. The licensee shall not give an undue preference to any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue disadvantage.

12. If there is a dispute between the licensee and a distribution undertaking, whether operating by licence or by exemption order, concerning the terms under which programming services are or may be provided, then the licensee shall submit to a dispute resolution process, if the Commission so requires.