CBC executives appeared before the CRTC hearings in Gatineau Quebec this morning.

As yesterday, the fee-for-carriage issue dominated the hearings. The CBC asked for the right to negotiate a price with cable and satellite carriers for its conventional television signals.

“The conventional television financial model in Canada is collapsing,” Hubert Lacroix said in a press release this morning. “The CRTC needs to recognize what conventional broadcasters bring to the services that cable and satellite companies offer their customers,” the CBC president added.

During the hearing Executive Vice President of English Services Richard Stursberg said “those services that are drawing the smallest audiences are the one’s making the most money, there’s something odd about that.” He said the conventional broadcasters are the heavy lifters in the industry. They attract the largest audiences, yet broadcasters are not paid for those signals.

Unlike previous hearings, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein was much more conciliatory during the CBC presentation, which he said he was well organized. He said “We’re all striving for a solution in which Canadians don’t have a higher bill, or if they have a higher bill they get a better product.”

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	The CRTC, The Media Landscape