The Canadian broadcasting business model is broken, Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, told the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance Wednesday. "We don't have the benefit for that subscription fee [that specialty channels receive through customers' cable or satellite subscriptions]," Lacroix told the committee in an appearance to discuss the government's spending estimates. "What you get on your [cable] bill, there's not a cent that goes to us, for La premiere chaine, the CBC network, or for our main television channel. That is what is broken." Lacroix added that the CRTC's value-for-signal decision, which proposed that broadcasters get the right to force distributors into negotiations to determine the "value" of carrying the broadcasters' over-the-air channels, excluded the CBC. The decision, currently being reviewed by the Federal Court of Appeal, would allow broadcasters to pull their signals from the distributors as a negotiation tactic. But Lacroix said he agrees with the CRTC that the CBC should not have the power to pull its signal because of its public service mandate to be available to all Canadians. "We don't want to pull our signal," Lacroix said. "But there are all sorts of other mechanisms that the CRTC could have put in place to ensure that there was going to be a fair negotiation with the cable or satellite company, and if we didn't agree the CRTC could step in to facilitate negotiations."
Source: The Wire Report, 05/14/2010