征信号费料开绿灯 有线电视月费或加2至8元
(29日加新社电)加拿大广播及通讯管理委员会(CRTC)于周四公布广播业检讨报告，据它可能批准加拿大广播公司(CBC)等无线电视业者征收信号费，有线电视用户的月费最终可能提高2到8元。消费者多付有视电视费，好处是节目内容更丰富、选择更多。
许多专家预测，加拿大广播及通讯管理委员会这次的检讨报告，中心议题是修改相关条例，允许加拿大广播公司、加拿大电视台环球媒体公司(CTVglobemedia Inc.)及加西环球通讯公司(CanWest Global Communications Corp.)等无线电视业者收费，向有线电视及卫星电视营运商收取信号费。
在今年4月的3周听证会中，这一建议是业者激辩的论点。当时，电视业界的不同阵营针锋相对，竭力捍卫自己的利益。
传统的无线电视公司与有线电视及卫星电视经营者争论，互相指摘对方贪婪、管理无方，论战不仅在听证会上演，还蔓延到相关的报纸文章上。
从历史上看，有线电视及卫星电视公司向大约90%的加拿大观众传送电视信号，一向没有支付无线电视公司的节目费，但有给特别频道支付部分使用费。
有线电视运营商说，新规例将提高加人的电视月费，每月或增加2到8元。如无线电视业者向有线电视和卫星电视营运商收取信号费，新增成本多数会转嫁消费者身上，新收费法对用家的好处是电视节目多样化、有更多选择。
Watching TV may cost more
THE CANADIAN PRESS/OTTAWA–It may soon cost most Canadians a little more to watch TV.
That could be the trade-off the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will aim for Thursday when it hands down its much-awaited review on the broadcasting system.
Many expect that the centre-piece of the CRTC review will be a rule-change to allow over-the-air broadcasters such as CBC, CTVglobemedia Inc. and CanWest Global Communications Corp.(TSX: CGS) to charge cable and satellite operators for their signals.
That proposal was the focus of three weeks of heated hearings in April that sometimes spilled into vitriol as different camps within the industry fought to defend their positions.
Conventional broadcasters squared off against companies with cable or satellite distribution systems, accusing each other of greed and mismanagement, not only at the hearings but in op-ed newspaper articles.
Historically, cable and satellite companies – which deliver TV signals to about 90 per cent of Canadians – haven’t paid for programming from over-the-air broadcasters but they do pay a portion of subscriber fees to specialty channels.
The broadcasters have long argued they, too, should get some of the subscriber fees to offset a loss in advertising share to the specialty channels and to help pay for the programming they produce.
But the cable companies are equally adamant that higher subscriber fees would scare away customers and that the broadcasters – which also own most of Canada’s specialty channels – are already making plenty of money.
Jim Shaw, chief of Western Canada’s biggest cable company and the StarChoice satellite service, went so far as threaten to go over the head of commission chair Konrad von Finckenstein and straight to the prime minister to stop consideration of the new fees.
Cable operators say the new proposals would wind up costing Canadians between $2 and $8 a month in higher subscriber fees.
Much has changed since the CRTC originally agreed to shelve the broadcasters’ proposal, and particularly since the hearings, notes Ian Morrison of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
“The CRTC since April … has started to realize how the lack of money in the over-the-air television system is causing a problem, so they would be very sensitive to the potential for a broadcast equivalent of a market disaster,” Morrison said.
In a note to clients, TD Securities suggested the CRTC will have listened to the pleas from broadasters and move to give the conventional end of the industry more room to raise revenues.
That can be done through the fee-for-carriage charge or by charging cable and satellite for the use of conventional “distant signals” – which allows viewers in one part of the country to catch a show airing in another part, in a different time zone. Or both.
“In general, we expect the commission to take steps it feels will help the conventional broadcasters,” the bank note states.
For Canadians, the trade-off may be having a wider variety and greater choice in the programs they can watch.
While few expect the CRTC to open the doors wide to U.S. specialty stations such as ESPN or HBO, which would compete directly with the Canadian counterparts, many see some relaxation of so-called genre protection to allow more Canadian rival stations to emerge.
Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s largest cable provider with a base in Ontario and parts of Atlantic Canada as well as numerous broadcast and specialty channels, suggested such a compromise during testimony last April.
The carriers may also be given greater flexibility in the “must carry” stations that the CRTC insist they offer on their basic packages.
Few now expect cable operators to get the almost total deregulation of the industry some, particularly Shaw Communications Inc. (TSX: SJR.B), have called for and has so concerned smaller specialty stations such as the Food Channel or Vision TV.
Von Finckenstein has remained tight-lipped about his thinking other than saying he wants to “introduce more market forces … as long as they work towards the objectives of the Broadcasting Act,” which gave comfort to both sides.
But Morrison believes the financial fiasco in the United States may have also bolstered the commission’s hand in arguing for the necessity of tight regulation of the industry. Deregulation didn’t work so well in the U.S. financial sector, he notes.
“In April we had to defend the appropriateness of regulation, but you wouldn’t have to make the case today about the principle of regulation.”
