Bell Media is appealing a decision by the Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which recently extended the company’s licenses without allowing the company to request a reduction in its Canadian content obligations.
As The Canadian Press reported Monday, Bell Media appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal last month. The company defends that it would have liked to have listened to its applications before the CRTC renewed its licenses.
The CRTC on August 6 extended the broadcast licenses of major television networks for a period of three years until August 2026.
However, on June 14, Bell Media submitted a list of requests that specifically called for a reduction in the proportion of programming that must be reserved for Canadian content from 30% to 20%. In particular, she called for a reduction in spending on local news and its newsrooms.
Bell Media also proposed reducing the proportion of its content dedicated to “programs of national interest” from 7.5 to 5%, a niche that notably includes long-form documentaries, drama and comedy programs or even variety shows.
These license renewal amendments were submitted on the same day that Bell Media announced 1,300 job cuts and the closure of six radio stations across the country. The layoffs represented a 6% decline in Bell Media’s workforce.
Bell Media then pointed out that its 35 local television stations, called CTV, CTV Two and Noovo, as well as three optional television news services – CP24, CTV News Channel and BNN Bloomberg – were experiencing financial difficulties. According to the company, this situation required regulatory changes.
Bell Media’s average annual news operating loss was $28.4 million between 2016 and 2019, a figure that rose to $40 million last year with the arrival of the web giants and their capture of the Canadian advertising market.