ARCHIVED - Broadcasting Commission Letter Addressed to Various Parties
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Ottawa, 15 February 2018
BY E-MAIL
Ms. Jessica Parkinson
Compliance Officer
21900115 Ontario Inc., 1490525 Ontario Inc., Moviola: The Short Film Channel Inc.
crtc@tvchannelzero.com
Mr. Joseph Tedesco
Senior Vice President and General Manager
DHX Television Ltd.
Joe.tedesco@dhxmedia.com
Mr. David Kines
President
Hollywood Suite Corp.
David.kines@hollywoodsuite.ca
Dear Sirs, Madam,
Re: Renewal of the television licences specified in Notice of Consultation CRTC 2017-183 – Requests to designate information as confidential by Channel Zero, Hollywood Suite and DHX
(Applications 2017-0808-3; 2017-0820-8, 2017-0821-5, 2017-0822-3, 2017-0823-1, 2017-0824-9, 2017-0836-4, 2017-0839-8, 2017-0840-6 and 2017-0843-9)
Following the requests by DHX Television Ltd., Hollywood Suite Corp. and 21900115 Ontario Inc., 1490525 Ontario Inc., Moviola: The Short Film Channel Inc. (collectively, the licensees) to designate information as confidential for the applications mentioned above and pursuant to section 34(1) of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure (the Rules), the Commission hereby requests that the licensees file the information requested below in order to be placed on the public file of the above-mentioned applications:
- Financial projections for all discretionary services, for broadcast years 2017-2018 to 2022-2023, broken down by service.
- Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) projections for ownership groups that wish to form a designated group (appendix 7 of the applications) for broadcast years 2017-2018 to 2022-2023; combined CPE by categories for all services that would form part of the group.
For Channel Zero only:
- Financial projections for CHCH-DT Hamilton, for broadcast years 2018-2019 to 2023-2024, with the exception of the breakdown of revenues for television, which, when requested, may be treated as confidential.
The Commission considers that disclosure of this information is in the public interest for the following reasons:
- The Commission generally treats past financial results and projections for the years of the upcoming licence term as public information, as noted in the appendix to Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2010-961.
- As announced in Regulatory Policy CRTC 2011-601, in the specific case of Category BFootnote1 services not related to large ownership groups, the Commission makes an exception to this rule by only partially publishing their past financial results. However, this exception does not apply to projections.
- It is the Commission’s usual practice to publish financial projections on the public file at licence renewal, including for discretionary services that are not related to large ownership groups.
- The Commission determines that disclosure of financial projections is necessary for parties to effectively provide comments regarding the undertakings and conditions of licence proposed by the licensees, notably those related to CPE.
- The licensees did not clearly demonstrate how disclosure of financial projections would be likely to result in specific direct harm.
- The importance of the requested information to the public outweighs the direct harm that their disclosure may inflict on the licensees.
- Other applicants in licence renewal processes announced in Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2017-183 have already disclosed the requested information.
Please file revised abridged versions of the documents that take into account the above-mentioned conclusions by 26 February 2018.
Otherwise, pursuant to section 33(4) of the Rules, you may file a reply with the Commission by 26 February 2018. Should the licensees confirm their request to maintain confidential designation, the Commission will not require the disclosure of the information. In such case, the information will not be admissible in evidence and the Commission will not take it into account. The Commission may then find the renewal application to be incomplete.
Further, to ensure that the public has enough time to take the new information into account in their interventions, the Commission announces that it will add two weeks to the intervention periods of all processes mentioned above, from the day the information is received. A letter to this effect is also being published today.
Yours sincerely,
Claude Doucet
Secretary General
- Date modified: