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The regulatory landscape is complex and it would take an
expert in telecommunications law to explain what exactly are
the conditions of each license category. But a quick glance
at
the CRTC’s list of Category 1 and 2 channels confirms
that Category 1 is not a ticket to the basic package.
(Hands up everyone who gets MTV2 and “ONE: the Body, Mind &
Spirit Channel” in their basic line-up.) Anyhow, Quebecor
did subsequently reapply for a Category 2 license,
requesting “mandatory access” (but not “mandatory
distribution”) for
up to three years (the actual license application can
be found
here). So if the license is granted, broadcasters would
have to offer Sun TV News to their subscribers for up to
three years. Admittedly, the state shouldn’t be forcing them
to offer anything, but this is not exactly the stuff of
nightmares.
So if their interpretation of license categories appears to
be off and the initial application was rejected anyway, how
do critics maintain the objection? The petition warns that
CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein is in the Prime
Minister’s crosshairs. The allegation is based on a
Globe and Mail column by Lawrence Martin, which
cited “insiders” in asserting that von Finckenstein was
being offered “judgeships and ambassadorships” in an effort
to replace him with “a rubber stamper” (who would presumably
grant the Category 1 license).
In response, von Finckenstein wrote
a letter to the editor affirming, “I would like to
categorically state that no one at any level of government
has approached me about the Sun TV application, the
appointment of the CRTC's vice-chair of broadcasting, or my
own mandate.” (Your author also suggests reading the
contribution that appears directly below von Finckenstein’s.)
In response, Heather Mallick called von Finckenstein “naïve”
for thinking that he would not be “targeted.”
Of course, the way to avoid this problem in the first place
is for the airwaves to be privately owned and for the state
to have no role in apportioning them. But given von
Finckenstein’s statement, which has reduced the critics to
calling him a naïf, it’s hard to see what more there is to
this story than pure speculation.
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Markets for thee, not for me |
The interesting thing about the “don’t-force-it-on-us”
argument is the blatant double standard it displays. For
example, take Globe and Mail television critic John
Doyle.
In a recent column, he wrote that the new “Fox News
North” would “obviously” be viable only “if it is shoved
down our throats.” Mandatory carriage, he warned, would mean
that “you couldn’t avoid the darn thing even if you wanted
to.” His conclusion? “Bring it on … But let it be tested by
the marketplace, not shoved down our throats.”
Not four months prior, the same John Doyle wondered if “the
current battering is the minority Conservative government’s
manner of preparing the public for a major cut to CBC
funding and the eventual beleaguerment of the CBC as a
fringe broadcaster.” He speculated that perhaps “the side-effect
here is to elevate the role of private broadcasters.” Doyle
wondered if the time were coming when a private TV network
would complain about “unfair competition from a subsidized
public broadcaster.” But as he dismissed the “whining and
heckling about CBC’s $1-billion budget,” one thing was
clear: “Canada would depreciate as a country if the CBC
dwindled into a fringe broadcaster.” After all, “public
broadcasting has a perfect, logical right to exist.” His
penultimate paragraph is worth quoting in full:
Public broadcasting should show us the
best of our own storytelling, news and entertainment,
and do those tasks that private broadcasters balk at. To
many Canadians, CBC-TV and radio have traditionally
represented an oasis of good taste and common sense in a
media world gone mad with celebrity coverage and other
forms of mindless frivolity.
The mind boggles at the brazen absence of logical
consistency. How can the same person fume with rage over the
possibility that the state might require carriers to
offer a TV channel to their subscribers while
simultaneously believing passionately in the need for
Canadian taxpayers to be forced to subsidize another
broadcaster to the tune (in 2009)
of almost $1.1 billion!
Free speech is deeply ingrained in Canadian political
culture and even the most fervent critics are no doubt
highly uncomfortable with the idea of censorship. But then
one reads columns such as Linda McQuaig’s in the Toronto
Star in which she closes with the words, “The media
already blast Canadians with a steady chorus of right-wing
ideas. A Fox-style network here – if Harper gets his way –
would turn that into a deafening cacophony.” If she isn’t
advocating that Sun TV News be kept off the airwaves, what
is she advocating? Given the rather feeble nature of the
objections to Sun TV News, to what extent is the criticism
really being driven by an unspoken desire for censorship?
They may not want to admit it to themselves, but it sounds
like they would rather that the CRTC simply tell Quebecor to
take a hike.
At the risk of stating the obvious, as long as the state
controls radio and TV frequencies, we can look forward to
more hysterical debates over political interference in the
licensing process, subsidies for the CBC, alleged censorship,
and media being shoved down our throats. What if we were all
free to decide what to broadcast and what to watch? What if
state coercion played no role in broadcasting?
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The claim about funding appears to refer to the type of license Sun
TV News applied for, which I’ll discuss later. But the point is that the
petition labelled the new channel a “nightmare” and apparently 80,000 people or
so agree, although Teneycke claims
