CRTC decides on satellite radio

The Globe and Mail reports that Canada's media regulator, the CRTC, has ruled on just who will be allowed to sell subscription-based digital radio in Canada. The answer, given Thursday, is three Canadian-based companies, two of whichh are satellite-based and one terrestrial-based.

The report talks of the federal broadcast regulator as ushering "in a new era in the Canadian radio industry." The CRTC ruling is expected to lead to the availability of scores — perhaps hundreds — of new stations in the Canadian radio market," although the article also cautions that "consumers will in most cases have to either buy a new car or get used to making monthly payments to obtain the new services." (The service is expected to cost about C$10 per month.)

The three successful applicants (interesting, since there are only two services in the U.S.) are:

- Canadian Satellite Radio Inc., a Toronto-based joint venture between entrepreneur John Bitove Jr. and Washington-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., which already has four million subscribers.

- Sirius Canada Inc., a partnership between Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Toronto-based Standard Broadcasting Corp. Ltd., and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.

-A joint venture of Toronto-based CHUM Ltd. and Montreal-based Astral Media Inc. that proposes to use terrestrial transmitters instead of satellites. The CHUM-Astral proposal includes far higher levels of Canadian content than the XM or Sirius systems.

Noted the Globe and Mail in an earlier article: The key feature of the decision is just how much Canadian content will be expected of the two U.S.-based satellite systems, if they are licensed. Each has proposed to include several Canadian channels among the more than 100 channels they beam across North America. And in fact the CRTC has "stuck to its old ways by imposing tight domestic content restrictions on the three service providers." The regulator demanded that the two satellite-based providers -- Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. and Sirius Canada Inc. -- produce:

• "At least eight original channels produced in Canada.
  
• "No more than nine "foreign" channels for each domestic channel.
  
• "At least 85 per cent Canadian content on the Canadian music channels.
  
• "One French-language channel for every three English-language channels.
  
• "At least 25 per cent new Canadian content on the musical channels, which means work produced by artists within the last six months.
  
• A further 25 per cent of the musical selections on the Canadian channels must be the work of "emerging" artists, which means those who have not yet had any hits.

The paper also noted that the decision "is likely to prompt a lengthy period of turmoil in the nascent broadcasting sector." And today's piece even suggests that the ruling "could even signal the death knell for the conventional industry."