Construction on the new $7.4 million Reseau de l’information studios and newsroom is underway on Level 3 at Maison Radio-Canada. The 24-hour French-language all-news service has an annual budget of $27 million – 85% from subscriber fees, 9% from advertising and 6% from program sales to Radio-Canada. rdi’s advertising is restricted to eight minutes per hour.

The service will be distributed on basic cable in Quebec at a cost of 90 cents per subscriber per month, and as a discretionary service in the rest of the country at a monthly cost of 10 cents per subscriber. Clearly, rdi is the French-language counterpart of CBC’s Newsworld, and the only new news service to be licensed in this round of specialty channel licensing.

The rdi program schedule is made up of round-the-clock news, analysis and interpretation. Hourly newscasts and headline news on the half-hour are the backbone of the service. The first edition of Le Telejournal, Radio-Canada’s main evening newscast, will be broadcast daily at 9 p.m.

Also on tap is extended special coverage of major national and international stories, current affairs, religious, educational and sports programs (sports programming excludes coverage of live sports events).

Programming blocks include a wide-ranging morning magazine show; regional programming produced in Moncton, Ottawa, Quebec City and Winnipeg for early and late afternoon time slots; late afternoon international newscasts; and a special 9:30 p.m. magazine show devoted to regional issues.

In the event rdi is not readily picked up on a discretionary basis, or as part of a discretionary package, by distributors in English Canadian markets, Claude St-Laurent, Radio-Canada, general manager, information services, says the public broadcaster will ask the crtc to decree a more mandatory distribution of the service’s signal.

French-speaking communities outside Quebec have expressed dissatisfaction with rdi’s discretionary distribution in English Canada, but this approach has worked reasonably well for Newsworld, which is distributed in Quebec on various tiers and in the Montreal region for a nominal monthly charge of 15 cents per subscriber.

Martin Cloutier, a producer with Radio-Canada’s news service, says there is every reason to believe rdi will do as well as TV5, which currently has 3.5 million subscribers in anglophone markets.

rdi intends to hire 184 new staffers, including 51 technicians, 38 journalists and 35 producers.

Staffing of key posts – an rdi head, director of programming, director of news, director of marketing and affiliates (cable) and director of administration – will start at the end of the month, says Cloutier.

Radio-Canada news staff won’t be asked to do double-duty, says St-Laurent, but tight co-ordination between rdi personnel and staff with Radio-Canada’s three primary news programs – Le Telejournal, Le Point and Montreal ce soir – will be de rigeur.

rdi will be 90% Canadian content in prime viewing hours, and at least one-third of all original programming must be produced by cbc stations in francophone regions across Canada or by the news operations of regional rdi associates – Cogeco Radio-Television, Radio-Nord, ckrs-tv in Jonquiere, Que., Television Quatre Saisons, Radio-Quebec and tvontario.

Of special note to private-sector producers, rdi’s schedule will feature a primetime daily show called Contexte. This program will air documentaries produced by private-sector tv stations and producers. By year three, Cloutier says rdi, like Newsworld, plans to invest in original program development.

rdi also has a news-sharing agreement with France Television and other European broadcasters (rtbf and tsr) and will broadcast the live newscasts of France 2, France 3 and Euronews. Existing agreements with u.s. news services cnn, cbs and nbc will also augment the rdi sked.

The crtc has stipulated that Radio-Canada is not allowed to simultaneously distribute any rdi programs on the French cbc network, except for a limited portion (two hours) of a weekday morning news show.

rdi has not yet worked out test-run details, but will be ‘up and ready to go by Jan. 1, 1995,’ says Cloutier.

Reseau de l’information

Societe Radio-Canada

Information Services

1400, boul. Rene-Levesque E. Montreal, Que. H2L 2M2

Fax: (514) 597-5749

Contact: Claude St-Laurent