Geist: Broadcasters want more than fee for carriage
The following article was published in the Toronto Star:
In the weeks leading to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearing on broadcasting licences, Canadians were inundated with splashy advertising campaigns claiming that new fees for local signals were either a TV tax or would save local television. With all of the major broadcasters and cable companies appearing before the commission, the fee-for-carriage (or value-for-signal) issue unsurprisingly took centre stage at last week’s hearing.
Yet those convinced that the broadcaster plan was limited to a new fee were in for a rude awakening.
Fee for carriage is only part of the story, as broadcasters are also seeking to: block U.S. signals; leave some Canadian communities without over-the-air television; and delay the transition to digital television transmission until 2013. READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
