Doubts Grow About Canadian DTV Transition as Deadline Approaches

Large broadcasters, communications lawyers, industry consultants, public interest advocates, and even some regulators say that there’s no longer enough time for station owners to carry out the digital conversion because they're so far behind. The government’s timetable for processing and approving scores of digital transmitter applications is too tight for station owners to meet, they said.

"No one can be expected to achieve the impossible,” Suzanne Lamarre, a member of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), wrote in a dissent from a commission ruling in late March affirming the deadline. The commission did exempt stations in smaller and rural markets, with about 17 percent of the country’s homes total, from meeting next summer’s deadline. But it’s “unrealistic to think that all transmitters in all mandatory markets can be converted by 31 August 2011,” Lamarre said. “The evidence to that effect put on the record by broadcasters is clear, credible and uncontradicted."

The Commission maintained the deadline for markets of 300,000 people or more and for provincial and territorial capitals. Stations in 30 “mandatory” markets -- including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Halifax, and Ottawa -- are included.

"There is a concern it just may not be possible because there are not enough engineers and resources out there to get this done by August 2011,” Charlotte Bell, the regulatory head of Canwest Global Communications, told Cartt.ca recently. Broadcasters say they can’t afford to install all the new DTV towers needed without federal government subsidies and possibly other help, especially in the smaller, more rural markets. They have said they will need to shut down the analog transmitters without digital replacements in those markets. In a country with about 13 million TV households, an estimated 900,000 homes don’t have digital TV sets now and so stand to lose service.

"It’s another cost to us on a money-losing business without any chance of recouping the expense,” Paul Sparkes, executive vice president of corporate affairs for CTVglobemedia, told the Canadian Press. “Governments are going to make billions off of the auction, and private broadcasters can’t be expected to bear the brunt of these costs given that we're being moved off of the spectrum.”

Citing last year’s U.S. DTV transition process as a largely successful model, industry experts have called on the Canadian government to run a national public awareness campaign about the switch to digital TV. Critics have also called for the federal government to subsidize consumer purchases of digital set-top converter boxes, like the U.S. government did. But the prospects remain uncertain. In an interview last month, Michael Janigan, executive director and general counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, called the government’s approach “leadership by amnesia."

The CRTC has urged the government to position the DTV transition as a key part of Canada’s digital economy strategy, set up a consumer subsidy program, and fund and direct a national consumer education and awareness campaign. In late March, the agency launched a new proceeding to “ensure an orderly transition for consumers” to the digital future. As part of this proceeding, the Commission is seeking input in several areas, including: the number of Canadians that could potentially lose access to free, over-the-air TV; the size, type and manner of a potential subsidy program for over-the-air viewers; the provision of a free package of local and regional stations; possible measures to educate consumers about the transition; and the establishment of a trial market prior to the August 2011 transition. Unlike the case in the U.S., though, the Conservative government here has repeatedly dismissed the idea of subsidizing consumer purchases of digital set-top boxes or other equipment.

Other industry experts go even further. They note that Ottawa didn’t even make it clear until late last month that Heritage Minister James Moore, not Industry Minister Tony Clement or CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, is in charge of overseeing the digital transition. Until then, Clement, an influential regulator whose agency will oversee the spectrum once it’s auctioned to wireless providers, seemed to be in charge.

Government officials acknowledge that the DTV transition has gotten off to a slow start. “We have to start moving quite smartly, rapidly, to start disseminating this deadline that’s coming up and to work out the best way to roll this out,” Clement, who remains involved, told the Canadian Press. “You're talking about a small percentage of the population but, nonetheless, their world is going to change."

But, in spite of these concerns and the broadcasting industry’s calls for delays and waivers, government officials say they're still committed to implementing the August 2011 deadline. “I'm really going to try and avoid postponing,” Clement said. “I would really like to stick to the deadline."