OTTAWA-GATINEAU — Industry reps made more demands Thursday of Rogers Media in conjunction with its proposed $375 million purchase of the Citytv stations once owned by CHUM.

The requests ranged from the funding of more homegrown drama, a renewed commitment to domestic feature films, more local programming, the development of a terms of trade agreement, and more benefits going to western Canada, where four of the five Citytv stations are located.

Objections to the acquisition centered mainly on programming, including Rogers’ proposed $39.5 million benefits package, rather than the CRTC’s ‘twin-stick’ policy. The policy prohibits a broadcaster from owning more than one station in one language in one market.

During the final day of hearings the five-member CRTC panel asked Rogers executives only cursory questions about acquiring Citytv Toronto — a market where it already owns two over-the-air stations. The commission appears to agree with Rogers’ contention that because 60% of the programming on the ethnic-aimed OMNIs 1 and 2 is in third languages, that they are not competitive with City.

The lack of attention to the ‘twin sticks’ policy is in sharp contrast to the focus taken when CTVglobemedia was bidding for, but failed to receive, regulatory approval to acquire the Citytv stations.

However, CRTC chair Konrad von Finkelstein did demand assurances that Rogers would divest itself of its English-language religious TV station in Winnipeg operating as OMNI.11 and a similar station in Surrey, B.C. operating as OMNI.10.

‘I want to avoid that you come back to me here at the end of the year and say ‘We have tried our best, we can’t find a buyer and let us keep them,” said von Finkelstein.

Rogers Media president Tony Viner said Rogers was close to selling the two religious stations, and if they were not unloaded within a year, they would be put them under trusteeship and sell them by auction.

Although penciled in on the hearing agenda, the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild of Canada informed the CRTC they would not be appearing. Taking into consideration the written submissions of the guilds and unions, Rogers on Wednesday added $2 million to its benefits package and committed to spending all of its production benefits on priority programming, with at least 65% going to drama.

Appearing Thursday, ACTRA president Richard Hardacre called on Rogers to up it to 75% and to allow only 10-point Canadian drama to qualify for funding.

‘We’re happy with the concessions Rogers made yesterday, but we want them to go further,’ Hardacre told Playback Daily.

The Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Association attacked Rogers for having neither a ‘long nor deep’ track record working with regional independent producers. It called on the CRTC to require Rogers to demonstrate how the regions will be well represented in the priority programming commissioned by Citytv.

The Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association objected to Rogers’ proposal to include the Banff World Television Festival as a recipient of benefit money, stating that the fete is programmed and controlled by a Toronto company, Achilles Media, and doesn’t ‘directly benefit the production industry in the provinces where the Citytv stations are located.’

Both the CFTPA and the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters questioned Rogers’ commitment to feature films on Citytv. The concern stems from Rogers’ bid for regulatory approval to double the number of documentaries it can broadcast on the City stations in Vancouver and Toronto to 20. Rogers executives noted this genre would fit into the two-hour space on Citytv schedules that normally are filled with feature films.

CAFDE president Ted East urged the commission to ensure ‘that the Citytv stations, under Rogers ownership, continue to play the critical role in the Canadian feature film industry that they have in the past.’

To guard against anti-competitive practices potentially associated with increased vertical and horizontal integration, the CFTPA called on CRTC to require Rogers to enter a terms of trade agreement with independent producers as a condition of approving the transaction.

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This story has been corrected. It originally said the Citytv deal was worth $137 million, not $375 million.