OTTAWA — Consumers should not be forced to pay more to ensure the survival of conventional television and high-quality Canadian programming, Quebecor Media president and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau said Wednesday.
Quebecor Media owns Sun Media, cable giant Videotron and TVA, the largest French language station in Quebec.
Peladeau told a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearing in Gatineau, Que., that specialty channels reap large profits while conventional television that produces more Canadian programming is suffering due to declining advertising revenues. A rebalancing of the system is needed, he said.
But Peladeau insisted a new regime must not cost consumers more money.
Conventional television stations could split the fees consumers already pay for their specialty channels to avoid any additional increases on monthly bills, Videotron’s president and CEO Robert Depatie said.
Quebecor Media also said distributors should not be forced to carry television stations their customers don’t want.
Consumers must be allowed to decide what channels they want to pay for, otherwise they will simply turn to the Internet and mobile devices instead of conventional television, Peladeau said.
Fees should be negotiated with distributors based on audience numbers and programming budgets — including spending on Canadian productions, he said.
Canwest president and CEO Leonard Asper told the CRTC that if broadcasters and distributors can’t agree on a fee, parties should be forced into binding arbitration.
“In exchange, we will accept a spending requirement on Canadian programming for conventional television,” Asper said.
althia.raj@sunmedia.ca
