Any of you remember the promise of ISDN? Integrated Services Digital Networks were the rage in telecom design in the late 1980s, promising to make our phone lines run faster and jump higher, integrating voice data and image.
That is a 25 year old technology story, and it is a tale that may have given birth to media convergence a generation ago. That “C”-word led to the premature demise of a number of corporate titans, so we now tend to speak in terms of vertical integration. In its consultation document, the CRTC defined the term as follows:
āvertical integrationā refers to the ownership, by one entity, of both programming and distribution undertakings, or, both programming undertakings and production companies.
In other words: cable or satellite companies that own TV stations; or TV stations that produce programming; or presumably all three together. Five years ago, I wrote about what I saw then as the ultimate in convergence in the opening episode of 30 Rock, a show that later enjoyed a full year of story lines parodying the approval of NBC’s acquisition by Comcast. I wrote about this again in June, just before the oral hearings [includes link to interview with CRTC Chair at this year’s Canadian Telecom Summit].
In any case, the CRTC has decided [from its press release]:
Following its examination of consolidation in the broadcasting industry, the CRTC has decided to:
- Prohibit companies from offering television programs on an exclusive basis to their mobile or Internet subscribers. Any program broadcast on television, including hockey games and other live events, must be made available to competitors under fair and reasonable terms.
- Allow companies to offer exclusive programming to their Internet or mobile customers provided that it is produced specifically for an Internet portal or a mobile device. This includes supplementary programming such as behind-the-scenes video clips of a television program, as well as original content.
- Adopt a code of conduct to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and ensure all distributors, broadcasters and online programming services negotiate in good faith. To protect Canadians from losing a television service during negotiations, broadcasters must continue to provide the service in question and distributors must continue to offer it to their subscribers.
- Implement measures to ensure that independent distributors and broadcasters are treated fairly by large integrated companies. At least 25 per cent of specialty servicesĀ distributed by a large integrated company must be owned by an independent broadcaster. In addition, broadcasters launching a new pay or specialty service must make it available upon request to all distributors as an individual service, even if a commercial agreement has not been finalized.
The CRTC strongly encouraged cable and satellite TV companies “to give Canadians more flexibility in choosing the individual services they want as part of their packages” and has called on Bell, Quebecor (Videotron), Rogers and Shaw to report back by April 1 to detail “the steps they have undertaken to respond to consumer demands.”
The full decision can be found here. The first Appendix to the decision contains a “Code of conduct for commercial arrangements and interactions” and there are statements in other parts of the decision concerning a wide variety of issues, many of which will be the subjects of follow-up proceedings, as detailed in the second Appendix.