ARCHIVED - Public Notice CRTC 2000-18
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Public Notice CRTC 2000-18 |
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| Ottawa, 1 February 2000 | |
| Call for applications for a licence to provide a French-language specialty arts service | |
| Introduction | |
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1. |
On 6 August 1999, the Governor in Council requested the CRTC to "report on the earliest possible establishment of a national French-language arts television service that would reflect the unique character of Quebec culture and the needs and circumstances of French-language communities in other parts of Canada" (Order in Council P.C. 1999-1454). The Commission issued, on 8 September 1999, Public Notice CRTC 1999-146, announcing a public process and calling for comments from all interested parties. On 19 November 1999, after reviewing the interventions received, the Commission published its report entitled Report on the establishment of a national French-language arts television service (Public Notice CRTC 1999-187). |
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2. |
In that report, the Commission announced its view that the establishment across Canada of a French-language arts television service could, if certain conditions were fulfilled, make a significant contribution to achieving the objectives of the Broadcasting Act (the Act). As announced in the report, the Commission is issuing today a call for applications for a licence to provide a specialty service of this type. |
| Licensing criteria | |
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3. |
The Commission will consider applications submitted as part of this process in light of, among other things, the licensing criteria detailed below as well as the objectives set out in subsections 3(1) and 5(2) of the Act. |
| Programming content | |
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4. |
The proposed service must reflect the uniqueness of Quebec culture and the needs and circumstances of French-language communities in other parts of Canada. |
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5. |
The Commission expects the proposed service to contribute to the diversity of the high-quality French-language cultural programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system, and to create new opportunities for Canadian producers, creators and artists. The Commission also expects that the programming of the proposed service will not be directly competitive with that of French-language conventional or specialty services already licensed. |
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6. |
The Commission expects that the programming of the proposed service will not consist primarily of information programs on current events in the arts or of cultural magazine programs – a type of programming that is already very much in evidence on Canadian French-language television. The Commission also expects applicants holding television licences to demonstrate that their proposals will not reduce the amount of cultural programming already available from their services. |
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7. |
The Commission expects applicants to address the impact that their service may have on licensees of existing French-language conventional and specialty services. |
| Canadian content | |
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8. |
The Commission does not intend to impose Canadian content criteria that are different from those usually required of Canadian specialty services. Each application will be analysed on its merits. |
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9. |
The Commission does, however, expect applicants to demonstrate that they intend to make maximum use of Canadian resources – creative and otherwise – in producing and broadcasting their programming. In this regard, applicants are expected to commit to an appropriate minimum level of Canadian content. |
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Expenditures on Canadian programming |
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10. |
Applicants are expected to make financial commitments for expenditures on Canadian programming based upon reasonable revenue projections. The Commission imposed, as a condition of licence on each specialty service licensee whose application was approved in May 1999, an expenditure formula based on an appropriate percentage of the previous year's gross revenues. This percentage was derived by dividing the applicant's total projected Canadian programming expenditures over a seven-year period by the projected total gross revenues for the same period. The Commission considers it reasonable to adopt the same approach in the case of applications submitted in the context of this call for applications. |
| Ownership | |
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11. |
The Commission does not intend to favour any particular ownership structure. As the Commission indicated in Public Notice CRTC 1999-187, it favours a strong ownership structure and is open to various forms of partnership and cooperation. |
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12. |
The Commission has indicated that it is receptive to applications from partnerships involving independent producers and Canadian broadcasters, such as between French- or English-language private and public broadcasters, and broadcasters in different categories. Similarly, the Commission is open to alliances between Canadian and foreign broadcasters. |
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13. |
The Commission also reminds applicants that they should take into account the Commission's ownership policies. They should also comply with the eligibility requirements set out in P.C. 1997-486, dated 8 April 1997, Direction to the CRTC (Ineligibility of non-Canadians), amended by P.C. 1998-1268, dated 15 July 1998, and in P.C. 1985-2108, dated 27 June 1985, Direction to the CRTC (Ineligibility to hold broadcasting licences), amended by P.C. 1997-629, dated 22 April 1997. |
| Financing | |
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14. |
The Commission expects each applicant to provide a detailed business plan. This plan must include financial projections of revenues, operating expenses, capital costs and all underlying assumptions used to prepare the projections. There must be identification of sufficient funding within the business plan to finance both the start-up and on-going costs of operations until such time as the proposed undertaking becomes profitable. In addition, applications must include documentary evidence that all of the proposed funding within the business plan will be unequivocally available. Detailed guidelines regarding adequate financing requirements are available from the Commission. |
| Marketing | |
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15. |
Each application must include a detailed marketing strategy demonstrating the demand for the proposed service, the packaging scenarios and retail rates. The marketing strategy should include information concerning the markets to be served by the proposed service, target audiences and the number of minutes of advertising to be sold each hour. The assumptions used to prepare the advertising projections should also be provided. |
| Distribution | |
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16. |
The Commission expects that this service will be offered to subscribers on a discretionary basis only. |
| French-language markets | |
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17. |
In French-language markets served by Class 1 undertakings, the service will be entitled to access to analog distribution, subject to available channel capacity, pursuant to the access rules for French-language specialty services set out in section 18 of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations (the regulations). |
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18. |
The Commission expects the service to be offered as part of a tier of existing specialty services offered by Class 1 and Class 2 undertakings. |
| Other markets | |
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19. |
In Public Notice CRTC 1999-74, the Commission initiated a review of the access rules for Canadian minority official-language pay and specialty services. The policy resulting from that proceeding will deal, amongst other things, with the distribution of French-language specialty services in markets other than French-language markets. |
| Direct-to-home (DTH) satellite distribution undertakings | |
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20. |
Distribution of the service by direct-to-home (DTH) satellite distribution undertakings will be in accordance with the terms set out in section 38 of the regulations. |
| Completeness of applications | |
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21. |
The Commission advises that in keeping with its past practice, should an applicant fail to provide the required information set out above, the application will be deemed incomplete and returned to the applicant. |
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22. |
The Commission would like to inform applicants that issuing a call for applications for an arts service does not necessarily constitute a commitment by the Commission to issue such a licence upon completion of the process. Applications will be analysed on their merits and applicants must demonstrate that their proposals adequately fulfill the objectives stated in this call for applications and in the Act. |
| Filing of applications | |
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23. |
Complete applications must be filed with the Secretary General of the CRTC on or before 31 March 2000. |
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24. |
Applications must be filed in hard copy form and may be filed at any of the following Commission offices: |
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25. |
The Commission encourages parties to file an electronic version by e-mail or on diskette. The Commission's e-mail address for electronically filed documents is: procedure@crtc.gc.ca |
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26. |
Electronic submissions should be in the HTML format. As an alternative, those making submissions may use "Microsoft Word" for text and "Microsoft Excel" for spreadsheets. |
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27. |
Please number each paragraph of the comment. In addition, please enter the line ***End of Document*** following the last paragraph. This will help the Commission verify that the document has not been damaged during transmission. |
| Future public hearing | |
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28. |
The public hearing at which the submitted applications will be heard will be held in June 2000. The Commission will announce the details at a later date. The public will be given the opportunity to comment and the deadline for filing interventions will be announced in the notice of public hearing. |
| Secretary General | |
| This notice is available in alternative format upon request, and may also be viewed at the following Internet site: http://www.crtc.gc.ca |
- Date modified: