CANADIAN REGULATOR TO REJECT CALLS TO BLOCK CHUM DEAL Alexandre Deslongchamps – Bloomberg Canada's broadcasting regulator will reject calls to bar CTVglobemedia Inc. from taking over rival Chum Ltd. because the agency will ensure the company produces enough Canadian shows to meet standards.
“This deal is done,” said Stuart Langford, a commissioner with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. “It's highly unlikely that anyone would tolerate us just saying no.” He spoke at a hearing in Gatineau, Quebec.
CTV's purchase of Toronto-based Chum is one of at least three Canadian media acquisitions announced in the past year valued at more than C$1 billion ($900 million). The rival Canadian Broadcasting Corp. had urged the agency to block the deal, saying it will reduce the diversity of programming.
“On the side of what people will see in their living rooms on television and hear in their cars on the radio, we have jurisdiction there and there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing,” Langford said. “We're pushing for a little extra and we're pushing for more.”
The CRTC will hold hearings in September on how to prevent acquisitions of that size from reducing the variety of Canadian programming. At this week's hearings, the agency will attempt to determine whether it needs to impose conditions to force the companies to keep making Canadian shows.
“We are not in the business of killing deals,” Konrad von Finckenstein, the CRTC's chairman, said at the hearings in response to a request to postpone a ruling on the acquisition until the CRTC updates its rules. That would cause a “tremendous loss of value.” |