Videotron wants $50,000/month to carry APB/ADR

[Walter Dnes]

Here is an excerpt from the transcript of recent CRTC hearings on their website at... http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/transcripts/2007/tb0327.htm

2021 M. GÉRACITANO: Merci, madame Deschênes. Merci, messieurs, madame. Madame la présidente, mesdames et messieurs les conseillers, vous disposez désormais du sort d'Avis de recherche et the All Points Bulletin. Ou bien vous reconnaissez que ces deux services servent un intérêt public national comme nous en sommes absolument convaincus et vous leur accordez, en conséquence, le statut de service 9(1)(h) ou bien Avis de recherche fermera ses portes et All Points Bulletin ne verra jamais le jour.

2022 Il n'y a pas de solution intermédiaire possible.

2023 We currently must pay our only distributor Videotron upwards of $15,000.00 per month for distribution. That amount will soon escalate to over $50,000.00 per month.

2024 We provide a helpful service to the community and yet, must pay for doing so. Although it sounds perverse, it is our reality. Even to follow the Canadian distributors would be willing to take our services in similar financing conditions, the amount they would charge us would be in the millions of dollars per year.

This is outrageous. While I personally don't support making APB/ADR "must-carry" on BDUs, I feel that these fees are unfair, given that other pay-TV channels don't have to pay for carriage. The CRTC has the power to order Videotron to carry APB/ADR without charging these fees.

At quattro's request, I've posted a letter (in French) from Videotron to APB/ADR on my website at http://www.waltdnes.org/misc/vletter5.gif The Videotron logo colours are washed out due to the optomizing I did as part of cutting down the original 810,000 byte PDF/JPEG to under 50,000 bytes. Still too large to attach to this post.