A decision isn’t expected for a fortnight but word is that requests to the crtc for comprehensive additions to The Eligible Services Lists have hit the wall running.

With broadcasters, producers and distributors banging the drum on program rights issues and last September’s specialty service caveat that no u.s. services are added to the spectrum before all 14 Canadian channels are functioning, the crtc is expected to allow the Canadian Cable Television Association little leeway in what u.s. services it imposes on the analogue system this year.

The music video-oriented Black Entertainment Television (bet) may make the grade, moving from Part b (pay-per-view) of the list to Part a where it is analogue tier-eligible, despite a 16-page protest from chum. Also potentially blessed is the ccta’s request for removal of the 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. restriction on distribution of the Consumer News and Business Channel (cnbc) since extending its air time to 24 hours will have no impact on channel capacity.

But best case scenario for the vast majority of the 28 sponsored foreign services including The Golf Channel, Sundance Channel, Turner Classic Movies and Playboy Channel is likely a digital-only greenlight leveraged by dozens of interventions outlining the problems inherent in allowing more foreign services into the Canadian marketplace.

NetStar Communications, owner of Discovery Channel and TSN/RDS, makes several points including the analogue capacity crunch and the challenge in removing u.s. monoliths a la Country Music Television once they’ve established Canadian penetration.

The cable petition for 17 new services must also be reviewed in the context of current cable demands to roll back wholesale fees for existing specialties, says NetStar vp business affairs Paul Brown in the intervention.

NetStar is asking that not only existing cable licensees but those specialty applications now in process be taken into context when making the call on additions to the Lists. NetStar has an application for The Health Network ‘which would be directly affected, even seriously jeopardized,’ by the ccta’s proposal to add America’s Health Network and Fit tv to the Lists.

Likewise Baton Broadcasting Systems which is protesting specifically the addition of America’s Health Network, The Golf Channel and TV Food Network because it has filed applications for specialties on all of the above genres.

TMN Networks, owner of pay services TMN-The Movie Network and moviepix, both packaged exclusively with the non-Canadian services on the B List, are protesting the ccta’s quest to make the B services packagable with the September 1996 specialty licensees.

In the intervention, Lisa de Wilde, TMN president, says should TMN lose its exclusive linkage with the B List, which includes U.S. superstations, ‘it would jeopardize the contribution of Canadian pay tv services to Canadian film production ­ which amounts to approximately 40% of the revenues of Canadian distributors from Canadian movies.’

TMN is sponsoring the request to add Turner Classic Movies and KWGN Denver to the B List.

On the rights issue, NetStar, along with CTV Network, is protesting the addition of any foreign sports services including The Golf Channel which would crystalize a myriad of sports programming rights-related isses and compete directly with TSN and RDS about 400 hours of golf-related programming per year including the Canadian rights to the PGA, LPGA and Seniors PGA.

From the distributors side, the rights environment is equally problematic. In a rare submission from one of the private production companies, Ellis Enterprises is asking the commission take a ‘rigorous’ approach in ensuring that the rights of Canadian producers are not undermined by permitting foreign services into the country.

Pre-sale opportunities for Canadian producers in the U.S. market have already been reduced by U.S. spill-over and the presence of services like A&E and PBS, says Ellis president Stephen Ellis.

‘As a producer, if you have a new project you’d like to produce, in an ideal world you might want to pitch to A&E. If they were to pick it up it, because they’re in both markets, the debate then becomes who gets the first window. Wh’ever gets that pays the premium but instead of getting two first window fees, one is necessarily at second window rate. It’s a trade-off one against the other which is already a practical reality producers face. What we’re saying is let’s not create more situations with the same dynamic.’

Ellis also adds that with the number of new Canadian services in queue, there is ample opportunity to get much of the foreign programming offered by the non-Canadian service’s schedules into the country.

Keg Productions just completed a deal for 28 half-hours of Mother Nature for delivery to The Learning Channel this September.