Gatineau, Quebec
April 28, 2014
Jean-Pierre Blais, Chairman, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Check against delivery
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this public hearing.
Today, we will review issues related to four licensees:
- Moviola: Short Film Channel
- 1490525 Ontario Inc.
- Drive Publishing, and
- 1225520 Ontario Inc.
The purpose of this hearing relates to ownership and control.
Under the Commission’s regulations for specialty television services, licensees must obtain prior approval before taking any action or entering into any agreement that would change the effective control of a service. Further, as per their conditions of licence, the licensees must operate their own services.
These are key requirements given that, under the Broadcasting Act, broadcasters are responsible for the programs they air.
The apparent relationship of Drive Publishing and 1225520 Ontario with Diamond Media, a third party, indicates that these licensees may have failed to respect these two ownership requirements. Further to the litigation between the shareholders of the licensees, control over the licensees might have changed as a result of either the litigation or the settlement of the litigation.
Given these apparent non-compliances, the Commission expects the representatives of all four licensees at this public hearing to show cause why:
- a mandatory order should not be issued requiring the licensees to comply with the Specialty Services Regulations, 1990 and their conditions of licence
- the licences of the four services should be renewed, and if so, why the renewals should not be for a short term, and
- the licences should not be suspended or revoked.
If the licences are renewed, the Commission will also entertain Moviola’s proposed changes to its nature of service and to the categories it can draw programming from.
Further, the Commission will have to decide if the proposed change in ownership results in a change of control, and if so, whether the tangible benefits policy applies to the transaction.
The panel for this hearing consists of:
- Peter Menzies, Vice-Chairman of Telecommunications
- Stephen Simpson, Regional Commissioner for British Columbia and the Yukon
- and myself, Jean-Pierre Blais, Chairman of the CRTC and hearing chair.
The Commission team assisting us includes:
- François Vézina, Hearing Manager and Senior Corporate Analyst
- Anthony McIntyre, Legal Counsel, and
- Cindy Ventura, Hearing Secretary and Manager of Public Hearings.
I now invite the Hearing Secretary, Cindy Ventura, to explain the procedures we will be following. Madam Secretary...
