ARCHIVED - Letter
This page has been archived on the Web
Information identified as archived on the Web is for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. Archived Decisions, Notices and Orders (DNOs) remain in effect except to the extent they are amended or reversed by the Commission, a court, or the government. The text of archived information has not been altered or updated after the date of archiving. Changes to DNOs are published as “dashes” to the original DNO number. Web pages that are archived on the Web are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats by contacting us.
Ottawa, July 6, 2010
Translation
Monsieur Maxime Rémillard
Coprésident
V Interaction Inc.
85 rue Saint-Paul Ouest
Montréal, Québec
H2Y 3V4
Re: Eligibility of television stations to participate in the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF)
Monsieur,
This letter concerns the eligibility of television stations operated by V Interaction to receive funds from the LPIF. The Commission has reviewed the information provided by you in a letter dated June 14, 2010 to Peter Foster, Director General, Broadcast Policy and Applications. This letter was in response to a request for information from Mr. Foster dated June 9, 2010 concerning the provision of local programming and local news for the four stations operated by V Interaction: CFAP-TV Quebec City; CFKM-TV Trois-Rivières; CFKS-TV Sherbrooke; and CFRS-TV Saguenay.
In your letter you confirm that CFKM-TV, CFKS-TV, and CFRS-TV have not been broadcasting local programming, including local news, since February 2010. CFAP-TV Québec provides local programming that has been categorized as news. It was clearly set out in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy (BRP)2009-406 and BRP2010-167 that local television stations were required to maintain their local programming levels in order to remain eligible for LPIF funding. The Commission recognizes however that, in many cases, the coverage of the Olympic Games conflicted with local news broadcasts during February 2010.
In light of the above, the Commission concludes that the following stations were ineligible to receive LPIF funding as of March 1, 2010:
- CFKM-TV Trois-Rivières;
- CFKS-TV Sherbrooke; and
- CFRS-TV Saguenay.
For these reasons, the Commission directs the Fund Administrator to immediately cease payments on behalf of these three stations and recover any overpayment that may have occurred since March 1, 2010 from future monthly amounts payable to V Interaction Inc. However, the Commission recognizes your efforts to obtain a supplier of local news for these three stations. Therefore, the overpayment will be recovered over a period of nine months from June 2010 to March 2011 and will not exceed 50% of the monthly amounts payable on behalf of eligible by the Quebec stations eligible to the fund. We note that the Fund Administrator has postponed release of the June 2010 monthly payment to V Interaction while the Commission analyzed the situation.
In your letter, you identified that you are finalizing contractual arrangements to provide the requisite local news broadcasts for each of your stations to commence September 1, 2010. Should this occur and each of these stations starts airing local programming including local news, please notify the Commission and, subject to confirmation, the Commission will consider the eligibility of these stations to once again participate in the LPIF. If these stations are found to have not commenced the broadcast of local news required by their conditions of licence by September 1, 2010, the Commission, upon verification, will direct the Fund Administrator to immediately commence action to recover any outstanding overpaid amounts.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Morin
Secretary General
CRTC
cc. MacCay Duff Management, Inc
- Date modified: