He’ll probably hate me for letting this kitty out of the bag, but if you’re looking for work, you might want to give Bob Trimbee a call.

Trimbee is president of the National Broadcast Reading Service, the folks that hit pay dirt on July 24, when the CRTC granted them a broadcast licence for a specialty service called The Accessible Channel.

Okay, given that NBRS is a not-for-profit entity with a mandate to enhance media access for an estimated 4.5 million Canadians who are blind or visually impaired, maybe ‘pay dirt’ is sexing it up a bit. But the decision is undeniably a bombshell victory that would set any capitalist’s mouth to watering.

You see, the CRTC didn’t just grant NBRS any old broadcast licence, it gave over primo beachfront property – the kind that you just don’t see on the market much any more.

Our regulator deemed The Accessible Channel an essential service, and ruled that BDUs must carry it on basic digital cable at the regulated rate of 20 cents per subscriber per month. So, with around six million Canadian households currently on the digital basic spectrum, that means that, from its launch date sometime in 2008, The Accessible Channel is guaranteed revenue somewhere in the ballpark of $14 million per year, and that will only grow as more customers migrate to digital. Not bad for a startup.

While not exactly a bait and switch, the decision came out of some housecleaning the CRTC undertook as it paves the transition from analog to digital for the pay and specialty universe. Up until early 2006, eight specialty channels – MuchMusic, CBC Newsworld, RDI, TV5, VisionTV, VRAK.TV, The Weather Network and YTV – received mandatory basic analog carriage and, with that, guaranteed subscriber revenue. The setup was the envy of other specialty and pay-TV channels that struggle to rustle up subscribers and ad dollars.

But then the CRTC put everyone on notice, declaring that, with the move to digital, it was scrapping this privileged status as of Sept. 1, 2007, and invited applications for mandatory distribution on the digital basic tier ‘on an exceptional basis.’

Seven incumbents put in their applications. (Presumably MuchMusic, which did not, thought either that it wasn’t likely to pass the CRTC’s ‘national importance’ criteria, or that it could do better by negotiating its rates and placement directly with the BDUs.)

In addition, currently operating specialty services Canal Savoir, Avis de recherche and its licensed-but-not-operating English-language counterpart All Points Bulletin put in their apps for digital basic carriage, as did three wannabes: the multicultural Canada One TV, Métis Michif, and Accessible.

‘There certainly was not a broad call for applications at the time,’ recalls Pam Dinsmore, VP of regulatory affairs at Rogers Cable, which, along with most of the BDUs, intervened against the applications. ‘Procedurally, some of us had issues with [the CRTC] deciding to deal with these applications without a call for that in advance.’

While Canada One TV and Métis Michif were turned down flat, NBRS won out after laying out a solid business plan and research that convinced the CRTC that blind and visually impaired Canadians need adequate access to popular television programming. TV is, as Trimbee puts it, ‘today’s modern literature.’

(It should be noted that the CRTC decision does not relieve other broadcasters of their current obligations to supply closed captioning and described video versions of their programming. As per its name, The Accessible Channel is a more easily accessible add-on.)

CBC Newsworld and RDI were the only two of the previously privileged eight services to convince the CRTC that their ‘exceptional importance’ merits digital basic status. (Newsworld’s regulated rate is pegged at 63 cents per English-language household and 15 cents per French household per month, while RDI receives $1 per French-language household and 10 cents per English household.)

The other six services that once enjoyed mandatory basic analog carriage have been cast out into the wilderness and will eventually have to negotiate their carriage and fees with the BDUs, like everyone else.

The other winner in the CRTC lottery was the previously obscure French-language law enforcement specialty channel Avis de recherche, which was upped to the digital basic designation in Quebec at a wholesale rate of six cents per basic digital subscriber, generating $400,000 annually.

And while the mandatory basic analog carriage designation expires on Sept. 1, few of these changes really take hold until around 2014, when it is estimated that the BDUs will reach a high enough digital-penetration level (85%) to drop their analog signal.

But the future is starting to take shape. And in the meantime, NBRS has some major gearing up to do to prep The Accessible Channel for its 2008 launch. It must appoint a board of directors, hire staff, negotiate rights for the most popular programming it can get in various genres, and get its described video versioning and closed-captioning systems ready for takeoff.

‘Somebody had to take the bull by the horns and get this thing going,’ says Trimbee of the need for the national service, ‘and our little charity did it.’