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Ottawa, 25 March 2010
Our Reference: 486678
Mr. Hubert T. Lacroix
President et Directeur général
CBC Radio-Canada
1400 René-Lévesque Boulevard
Montréal, Québec H2L 2M2
Dear Mr. Lacroix:
In our conversation on Tuesday March 23rd you asked me to clarify the Commission’s approach to the CBC’s situation, in the context of Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-167.
Let me reiterate that the Commission is acutely aware of the important role of a national broadcaster in this age of digital revolution and the special situation of the CBC. As you know, section 153 of the above policy document states:
“ ...With respect to the public broadcaster, the Commission notes that section 3(1)(m)(vii) of the Act states that the programming provided by the CBC should “be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose.” As explained further below, the regime foreseen by the Commission would allow broadcasters to require program deletion when negotiating for a fair value for the distribution of their programming services. In light of the objective above, the Commission considers that it would be inconsistent to permit the CBC to require deletion of its programming from a BDU and hence prevent the public from receiving its programming. Moreover, during its appearance at the hearing, the CBC indicated that it fully understands the importance of its mandate and clearly agrees with the Commission’s position in that regard, as it spontaneously stated that it would not “play with threatening to pull our signal or having our signal not negotiated or not carried by the BDU.” Accordingly, the Commission has determined that the market based regime set out below will apply only to private local television stations. The distinctive situation and needs of the CBC will be addressed in the context of the public broadcaster’s next license renewal."
I expanded on this approach of the commission when I stated on TV Monday night:
“ First of all, the CBC has a future. It is a very integral part of the Canadian broadcasting system. Secondly, we have specific rules for it under the Act and one of those rules is that all Canadians should have access to it. So, we say in our decision, specifically, we cannot have negotiations where access to the CBC is in doubt. So, this whole scheme of “mutual destruction” as you call it really doesn’t apply to the CBC. We said very clearly in our decision we will first of all see whether the system is legal. We will put it in place. We will then turn to the CBC and we will look at both its requirements and its needs. Which basically means, if it works here we have to come up with an analogous system for the CBC? It obviously can’t be based on the same principle. We haven’t forgotten about the CBC at all. We're just doing it sequentially. We’re dealing first with the commercial broadcasters and then with the CBC."
Trusting that the above answers your query, I look forward to an interesting CBC hearing, full of new and innovative ideas.
Sincerely,
Original signed by
Konrad von Finckenstein, Q.C.
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