Citing a growing mismatch between its financial and cultural burdens, the CBC will ask the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on Monday to sanction the principle of carriage fees for conventional broadcasters.
If it were approved, Canadians would pay an additional, unspecified fee to cable, satellite or telco providers to receive the CBC, CTV, Global Television and CITY-TV. They now receive such signals without cost.
In a media conference call yesterday, Richard Stursberg, the CBC's executive vice-president of English television, noted that the public broadcaster is now responsible for the creation of nearly all Canadian specialty series and shows in the prime-time schedule and finances 75 per cent of Canadian comedy and drama.
But the CBC's ability to maintain that level of service, he warned, is being compromised by declining revenue streams from advertising and government.
CBC subsidies from the federal government have declined almost $400-million since the early 1990s, he said.
A recent survey commissioned by the CBC from Nordicity Group Ltd. shows that among 18 major Western countries, Canada had the third-lowest level of public funding for its public broadcaster in 2004. At $33 per person, it was ahead of only New Zealand and the United States.
Between 1996 and 2004, the survey says, total federal support for culture (excluding the CBC) increased by 39 per cent, while financing for the CBC declined by 9 per cent.
Other conventional broadcasters have already endorsed the carriage fee proposal. Officials for CanWest Global Communications Corp., parent of Global Television, have suggested a possible surcharge of 50 cents per subscriber.
Mr. Stursberg said the CBC would propose instead that the fee be linked to "initiatives in the public interest" that broadcasters were prepared to carry out.
"That's the purpose of the hearing, to test the principle that we can qualify," he said. But each request should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, depending on what was proposed.
Mr. Stursberg also called on Ottawa to initiate a full mandate review for the CBC that would clarify "what it is [they] want us to do," to agree on what that would cost and to put a 10-year budget in place.
At the moment, only specialty cable channels are permitted to charge carriers for their signals -- a form of compensation for their generally inferior location on the dial.
Most major Canadian cable operators have cited public opinion surveys indicating that the vast majority of Canadians are unwilling to pay for something they now freely receive.
Officials for CanWest have said their own polls suggest Canadians would be willing to pay for network signals.
