Rogers Communications has urged the CRTC to open the Canadian airwaves to more foreign channels, as the regulator gets set to write new rules for domestic cablecasters, satellite services and other content carriers.

‘Any non-Canadian service that would not threaten the viability of a launched Canadian programming service should be allowed in,’ the cable giant said Friday in a written submission to the CRTC.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, representing private broadcasters, warned in its own CRTC submission that it will oppose any move to loosen existing rules against importing foreign channels that unduly compete with existing Canadian services.

‘The CAB notes that the commission’s careful balancing and rebalancing of competing interests over the past 25 years has been a success with respect to discretionary services — for consumers, for distributors and for the broadcasting system in general, and that this could be placed at risk by a wholesale restructuring of the regulatory framework for discretionary services without due regard to their long-term sustainability and their contributions to the broadcasting system,’ CAB argued.

The potential clash between domestic cablecasters and broadcasters at the upcoming CRTC hearings will play out against the background of a recent CRTC decision not to allow NBC Universal’s USA Network into Canada via cable and satellite.

The CRTC ruled that the crime and mystery dramas on USA Network duplicated the series seen on Mystery TV, a specialty run by CanWest MediaWorks and Groupe TVA.

Shaw Communications, which sponsored the bid by USA Network to enter Canada, rejected the CRTC decision as ‘anti-consumer’ on grounds it denied Canadians choice in foreign TV services.

The Coalition of Canadian Audio-Visual Unions, in its own CRTC submission, renewed a call for the regulator to increase the contributions from individual cablecasters to Canadian independent production.

‘Canada’s robust, multi-billion dollar cable industry can afford to increase the amount it puts into Canadian programming,’ says David Hardy, business agent at NABET Local 700. NABET is a member of the CCAU.

‘The Broadcasting Act requires cable companies to contribute to the creation of Canadian programming,’ he added.

The CRTC hearings in early February will review how cable and satellite services and domestic specialty and pay channels are regulated in the new digital age, where analog channel scarcity is no longer a challenge.

Despite the explosion of new digital channel spectrum, Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada, urged the CRTC not to allow cable and satellite services to fill the Canadian airwaves with yet more American fare.

‘If the cable companies have their way, broadcast schedules will be filled with foreign content. Canadian audiences must have the opportunity to choose Canadian. The regulatory framework is in place to ensure that choice, and we should be careful not to disassemble it in the interest of higher corporate profits,’ she told the CRTC.