Star Choice has decided to drop yet another channel in its lineup in addition to CBC Saskatchewan — it has now dropped RDI, the CBC French news channel, in all Anglophone markets.

The CBC launched another formal complaint with the CRTC this week. RDI is on a very small list of channels that all providers are required to carry with their basic package, and the CBC argues that Star Choice is now in violation of its broadcast licence.

Earlier this week, five local news channels, including CBC Saskatchewan, were replaced by specialty channels like MuchMusic and Teletoon Retro by Star Choice.

Perhaps they got rid of RDI because they needed room for the Golf Channel?

Broadcaster.com featured an interview with Richard Stursberg, Vice-President of English Services at the CBC, this week. Really nothing all that new — basically the same arguments and explanations as we’ve heard, but, for the record, a brief summary of the interview is after the jump, below.

(more…)

The CRTC today denied HDTV Networks’ application for a licence to operate a national, English-language high-definition conventional television service.

“HDTV Networks sought to launch a television station that would be the Canadian equivalent of a superstation,” said Michel Arpin, the CRTC’s Vice-Chairman of Broadcasting. “The programming strategy associated with such a station is inconsistent with the objectives of the Broadcasting Act and the Commission’s policies. We have never granted a licence for such a conventional television station in the past and did not find any compelling reason to do so at this time.”

The requirement to make local programming available to audiences is an integral feature of the CRTC’s conventional television policy. HDTV Networks would only commit to providing two hours of local programming per week in each of the eight markets it wanted to serve: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. By way of comparison, existing conventional stations offer on average more than 22 hours of local programming per week

In addition, the CRTC today denied YES TV Inc.’s application for a licence to operate an English-language high-definition conventional television service in the Greater Toronto Area. The Commission was not convinced that the applicant could fulfill its programming commitments, among other things.

Radio-Canada television has been spanked reprimanded by the CRTC for airing a program at 7:30 p.m. which focused on pornography.

The Fric Show covers a number of topics each week, but after viewer complains, the CRTC said the Corporation erred.

9:00 p.m. is the generally recognized time when programming and language can get a bit racier — often called “the watershed hour.”

The CRTC has told the CBC that the matter will come up at its licence renewal.

The CBC has applied to the CRTC for permission to add an FM transmitter at Brockville Ontario to simulcast its Ottawa signal. The transmitter would operate at 106.5 FM and have 3,000 watts in power.

UPDATE: In a caffeine-overloaded day of blogging yesterday, I accidentally wrote Brockton instead of Brockville in the headline. Thanks to Neil for pointing it out.

I’ve been trying to decide if I’d weigh in on the debate currently underway at the CRTC. The question: Is continued media consolidation good for Canada or bad for it? I’ve hesitated because I’m afraid of being revealed for the left-wing pinko commie bastard that I am.

Richard Stursberg, CBC’s head of English television, told the commission that the Canadian media industry has reached levels that “in any other country would be considered unacceptable.”

‘Hogwash,’ replied the Canadian Association of Broadcasters*, a lobby group representing most of Canada’s private/commercial broadcasters. “We see no diversity deficit in the Canadian system,” said Glenn O’Farrell, president of CAB, pointing to the many ethnic and cable TV channels that exist on the dial, despite all the mergers going on at the corporate level.

So far this year alone, three major mergers/acquisitions have occurred in the Canadian media space:

• CTVglobemedia Inc. bought CHUM Ltd for $1.4-billion
• CanWest and the Goldman Sachs Group bought Alliance Atlantis Inc.* for $2.3-billion
• Astral Media Inc. bought radio giant Standard Broadcasting Corp. Ltd. for $1.1-billion

The CBC’s position is this: Public broadcasting needs to provide a counterbalance to consolidation of large commercial broadcasters. But it needs more money to do that. Also, Stursberg said there should be, restrictions on the amount of market share that cable companies can amass, since they can control access to TV sets and Internet distribution.

(The CBC receives less than $1 billion from the federal government each year to operate. It raises about $400 million on its own through television advertising. The CBC has not had an increase in funding for 30 years — not even to adjust for inflation — and yet is expanding its reach for Canadians into many more platforms including satellite radio, podcasts, and the web.)

The CRTC is trying to decide if it needs to tighten up the rules.

The Globe and Mail recently talked about a system in Australia where media concentration is measured using a points system.

Each media operation in a given market – including newspapers, commercial TV stations and radio stations – is worth one point. If any company owns multiple outlets, its collection of media assets counts as one point combined.

If a particular market in Australia is found to have less than five points in total, it is deemed to have an “unacceptable media diversity situation.” In smaller, non-metropolitan markets, the threshold is set at four points.

As well, if any single person or company controls a TV station, a radio operation and a newspaper within a given market, that is considered an “unacceptable three-way control situation.”

Australia’s government reserves the right to prevent future media deals in any market it considers to have an unacceptable ownership situation.

Personally, I don’t understand why alarm bells aren’t ringing at the CRTC.

Major media firms in this country keep trying to widen their pie. But how much profit does a company need? I know very well that they need to continue to increase shareholder value (hell, I used to be CEO of a publicly traded company) but, really, is that all there is? Is that the only value that matters?

I guess that’s what keeps me at the CBC.

We tell stories for and about Canadians, not shareholders.

But, as Dennis Miller used to say, “That’s just my opinion; I could be wrong.”

What do you think? Where does the CBC fit in this consolidated media landscape?

* Disclosures: I have given a keynote address to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. I used to produce a weekly web TV show on technology for Alliance Atlantis’ now-defunct blogtv.ca. I was paid for both of these.