As the industry gathers to summit, (ideally carving out strategy and partnerships but more likely playing dueling agendas and clashing survival tactics), the helter-skelter feel about the broadcasting system got b-shots this month via Minister Copps’ directive to the crtc to ‘consider’ the licensing of another national network and the Vancouver decision.

CanWest is heralding Copps’ directive as a victory, the welcome outtake of three months of unabashed lobbying to overturn the Alberta decision and long on their list to push onto the commission’s agenda. Funny. If their long-term dancing about the term ‘network,’ their insistence instead on ‘system’ is any indication, a hearing on a national network is the last thing they want.

The words aren’t interchangeable. ctv and the cbc are networks because (they might argue) the mother net is required to fork over its own share of Canadian expenditures separate from its affiliates which are too beholden to spend a percentage of revenue on Cancon. Using that criterion, CanWest is not. wic is not.

But now we have a network thing. Maybe a hearing, maybe a paper process, but an autopsy with medusa potential that makes it difficult for the new licensees to go forward 100% confident. According to the Broadcasting Act, a network ‘includes’ any operation which delegates control over part of its programs or its schedule to another undertaking. What else it includes will be subject to various interpretations depending on whether you’re ctv, Baton, City, or CanWest.

Guaranteed CanWest d’esn’t want to begin a bi-level contribution system. ctv is going to decree a reasonable profit and loss equilibrium between networks impossible without it. In theory, the production industry might be richer if CanWest was backed into spending on two levels, but its Saskatchewan station can’t be remotely as rich as Global and there may be loopholes, cross-subsidies, etc., that ends up with them spending on par.

No guarantees is the point. Too bad we can’t use the revenue formula on the company’s overall bottom line.

Another thing a national network might include is national distribution. So, as Alberta producers settle in with A-Channel and Baton enters Vancouver, then what? D’es whatever national network forum that surfaces provide either CanWest or CHUM another access opportunity? After all, the national distribution partnership theory is pretty much snafued now that neither Craig nor chum have a Vancouver outlet. A national network for feature film distribution is no further ahead than it was a year ago.

Factor in the environment where, depending on which part of the country you’re pointing at, Baton is alternately competing/cooperating with wic and ctv; where the wic/Baton/ctv program buying consortium arguably just got murkier with the Vancouver decision, and the risk factor involved in Baton and wic expanding hither and yon and spending like mad.

Cancon commitments fall out here somewhere. D’es Madison own a stable Canadian window at the end of the day? Is the incentive in place for a broadcaster to pick up something so quintessentially Canadian as Jake and the Kid, or are more homegrown cooking programs destined to hit the screens?

All trees. No forest. And stability about as likely as the u.s. backing off.