After being added to Cogeco’s tier three in November, and with hopes for similar moves by other cablers, classic movie pay service Moviepix has asked the crtc to delete its licence condition which forces it to run films that are at least five years old.

The application is expected to draw heavy fire in the form of opposing interventions from both specialty and conventional broadcasters.

While TMN Network president Lisa de Wilde is downplaying the crtc application, saying it’s more of a ‘housekeeping matter,’ some insiders suggest that Moviepix is after the burgeoning audience share that seeks movies on primetime instead of traditional network fare.

And by having its copyright restrictions lifted, they say, Moviepix becomes more attractive to cable companies as an addition to specialty tiers.

Film-heavy specialty channels Bravo! and Showcase, along with local stations such as Toronto’s Citytv and Alberta’s A-Channel, have been enjoying a ratings boost as the demand for quality films on television has increased.

Currently, Moviepix (as well as wic’s Western-based pay service Moviemax, which has filed the same application with the commission) is limited to programming movies for which the copyright is at least five years old.

The crtc application requests that Moviepix and Moviemax be allowed to run films of any age.

‘The way that the market for older movies has evolved means that the five years is just not a magic threshold,’ says de Wilde. ‘It was kind of a magic threshold when Moviepix was licenced because frankly there weren’t specialty networks out there in any great numbers that were programming movies.’

The president of Astral-owned tmn says that in the early days of Moviepix, films went from pay television to conventional television and then on to Moviepix.

‘Now the market is just a lot more fluid,’ she says.

Indeed, Chum Television, which owns Bravo! and Citytv, is expected to oppose the application, arguing that Moviepix is trying to gain backdoor access to the already crowded market of channels that run relatively new films.

‘This is a major change to their condition of licence,’ says Peter Miller, vp business and regulatory affairs Chum Television. ‘To take it from a classic movie channel to a current movie channel is a pretty fundamental change.’

Miller also points out that if the request is approved, Moviepix would essentially be ‘jumping the queue’ as a specialty movie channel ahead of Chum’s as well as Salter Street Films’ movie channel specialty applications pending with the crtc.

But de Wilde says she’ll be surprised if any interventions are filed opposing the request. She stresses that Moviepix’s copyright deletion application does not indicate a sea change in strategy for the pay channel.

‘Moviepix isn’t changing in any way that is significant,’ says de Wilde. ‘It’s just that now if we can remove this condition of licence we’ll simply be able to add a few more recent classic movies.’

However, one thing that is changing for Moviepix is the likelihood of it being included on cable companies’ discretionary tiers alongside specialty channels to help drive those packages. Cogeco’s inclusion of Moviepix on its third tier has helped the cabler increase its penetration rates and de Wilde wants others such as heavyweights Rogers and Shaw to follow suit.

Miller says this development is paramount to Chum’s opposition to the application. ‘You have to look at this application in light of the moves by many cable companies to start putting them on a specialty tier,’ he says. ‘This ruins and completely upsets the market for rates and the division between pay and specialty.’

Even if included on the Rogers or Shaw third tier, Moviepix would remain a commercial-free service, with subscriber fees being its sole revenue source, says de Wilde.

Shaw’s preschool specialty Treehouse also operates commercial free.