While the battle for news eyeballs has traditionally been fought on the ratings front, with CBC Newsworld and new competitors CTV News 1 and CP24 vying for audience share, the crtc offices in Ottawa have recently emerged as perhaps the most barbarous battleground.

The cbc has filed a formal complaint with the commission claiming that CTV News 1 has violated its condition of licence by broadcasting long-form journalism with extended live reports.

‘They made it very clear when they accepted their conditions of licence that this was going to be a 15-minute wheel and they were going to live or die by it,’ says Lanny Morry, director of regulatory affairs at cbc.

Morry says the cbc’s complaint cites at least 15 occasions where CTV News 1 violated its condition of licence, including live coverage of both the Pope’s and the Prime Minister’s visits to Cuba.

According to chief news editor Robert Hurst, ctv has responded to the commission by declaring that it is in full compliance with its licence as granted by the crtc.

‘The cbc has filed its complaint and we answered, and we believe we’re in complete compliance, but I would ask, is the public served by an agency which wishes to maintain a monopoly on news?’ says Henry Kowalski, ctv senior vp of news.

The complaint is currently in the final resolution stages and in the hands of a panel of commissioners. A response is expected soon.

‘We’re very interested to see how it goes because the commission made a very strong point with the Corporation when they told us we could no longer broadcast Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes on Newsworld,’ says Morry.

With the crtc’s infamous March 1997 decision (stemming from a ctv complaint) to prohibit Newsworld from rebroadcasting episodes of the aforementioned political satire shows in mind, Newsworld will debut a political satire show titled Not Just The News this fall.

The program will not violate Newsworld’s conditions of licence, according to Tony Burman, who took over as head of Newsworld in February.

‘We’ve looked at this very carefully and it’s within our mandate,’ says Burman. ‘We’re not slipping anything by anyone, we’re doing it in the full glare of light in consultation with the crtc staff.’

Going into its tenth season on the air, Burman says Newsworld is averaging a 1.3% audience share, maintaining the same level it held last year, before the launch of CTV News 1 and CP24. Newsworld is available in 7.8 million Canadian homes. The network’s yearly budget is $55 million, with 80% derived from cable fees and 20% from ad revenues.

Debuting less than a year ago, CTV News 1 is managing to score an admittedly tiny audience average of 9,000 viewers per half-hour from 5 p.m. to midnight. CTV News 1 reaches approximately four million homes.

CTV News 1 retstrictions

Besides lower revenues from cable subs and advertising, the biggest detriment to CTV News 1’s quest for viewers may be its restrictive licence conditions that form the gist of Newsworld’s complaints. The service must operate within a 15-minute wheel, continually updating viewers on news weather, sports, and in some cases business.

When presented with a scenario of what would happen in the case of an important breaking news story, where ctv has a camera on scene, Kowalski says that in order to fulfill its conditions CTV News 1 has the ability to show two separate pictures on screen.

‘We could put up two boxes, maintaining pictures from the breaking news story while the anchor brings you up to date on the other areas that we have a responsibility for,’ says Kowalski. ‘And I think that the public would view the ongoing story as the headline story. What’s a headline news service supposed to do but cover the headlines?’

While saying he doesn’t feel restricted by those conditions, Kowalski admits he would like to be given a fairer chance to compete with his competition.

‘Would I like to be able to do things that I’m not able to do and become a full competitor of Newsworld? Yes I would,’ he says. ‘Am I restricted in covering hard news? No I’m not,’ says Kowalski, who adds that the crtc’s rejection of ctv’s initial broader application for an all-news channel impeded competition and did not serve the public well.

Clearly adding to Kowalski’s frustration is the early and unexpected appearance of regional service CP24, co-owned by Rogers Communications, Sun Media and controlling owner Chum Television. He asks, ‘How has the playing field changed with the emergence of CP24 in this regional market almost two years in advance of when they had to be put on to the cable universe?’

Newsworld’s recently launched fall schedule places significant emphasis on its ability to cover breaking news. In addition to network production centers in Calgary, Halifax and Ottawa, Newsworld has revamped its Toronto newsroom to ‘provide a base for even more live coverage along with the introduction of five additional news programs.’

Newsworld’s expansion in Toronto, which will mean roughly 16 added news jobs, has prompted some critics to point out that Newsworld may be in danger of violating its licence condition to create a significant portion of its programming from regional centers outside Toronto.

Burman scoffs at this idea saying that the hours of programming from Calgary are increasing, and that he is working to create regular programming out of Vancouver.

‘Newsworld is the most regionally decentralized Network in the country, and we’re doing everything we can to show that,’ says Burman. ‘Toronto is a valid production center among several. There is a role for Toronto and we’re not shy about it, but there’s no plan here where the regional centers are being stripped of programming.’

Meanwhile at upstart CP24, the gta regional news service appears unfettered by any nagging licence conditions, besides the seemingly ironic inability to sell local advertising. According to Dan Hamilton, general sales manager, the crtc imposed the condition of not selling advertising to businesses that operated solely within Toronto to appease local radio interests.

vp news programming at Chum Television, Stephen Hurlbut, will be adding more long-form shows to CP24 in the near future with a gay-themed talk show and a potential call-in show with Mayor Mel Lastman. Hurlbut says the only licence restriction that he’s faced so far was the inability to broadcast a high school football game because it would constitute live sports.

Joining the news fray in front of the commission are French news services Reseau de l’ Information and Canal Nouvelles. Similar to the cbc/ctv situation, rdi has filed a complaint with the crtc claiming that the tva headline news service is also broadcasting long-form news.